Timeline
by akaiiko
Summary: "It's the greatest love story ever told," Koh tells Katara primly. "It's also a complete lie. What you saw here, that's the real story. Reincarnated lovers, their love conquering even death…and now you're a part of it." -Zutara; Post Series; semi AU; Abandoned-
1. Intermission One

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender. But I feel I should note that I own this plot―heart, body, mind, and soul.

**Notes: **This is my baby of Avatar fanfiction. I go and I make every possible connection between Oma/Shu, Tui/La, and Zuko/Katara that one possibly can. I also have a field day with Koh (I like him, little creeper that he is) and abusing Aang (I promise not to be too mean). There is copious amounts of Creepy Swamp That Knows Everything, Destiny Is Crap That Stands In Front of TRUE LOVE, Spirit Bending = Baaaaaad JuJu, Zutarans Pray to Saint Jun, and Spirit Traveling Katara FTW. Also some King Arthur parrallels 'cos I couldn't help myself. If all that sounds like your cup of tea, enjoy!

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"_Oh, you think you need their help? Actually it's _quite_ the other way around. _Someone's _going to _kill _them."_

"_What do you mean? How can I find them and protect them?"_

"_You've already met them, actually. Tui and La. Your moon and ocean. They have always circled each other in an eternal dance. They balance each other. Push and pull. Life and death. Good and evil. Yin and Yan."_

* * *

**Intermission One**

* * *

"Leave me alone," Koh croaks somewhat pathetically. Another millennium, or had it only been a day? Oh, to be a fish like Tui and Yue (silly girl, insisting on her human name) with the memory span of…well, a fish. "I don't care about your petty problems, Avatar."

"Petty problems?!" the new Avatar roars. My, he sounds fearsome. "This is the _fate of the world_."

"It always is." Which is true, however much this youngling might want to deny it. "You are lucky that I am feeling despondent today. I could have taken your face with that outburst."

That seems to dampen the young man's enthusiasm. "Well…this is the fate of the world."

"Oh? What is it _this_ time? Not that ridiculous comet again..." Koh eyes the Avatar. Another Airbender (he still remembered Avatar Aang of the child's face and villain's mind) and just as self righteous. But this one's eyes were a soft brown instead of a steely grey, and the arrogance about him seems taught rather than natural.

"It is…it is a matter that is both personal and public." The face stealer cocks a monkey's eyebrow before shifting to an old man. "I mean…you see, there is a war."

"I am so aware."

"Yes, well, the war."

"Which you haven't stopped, I might add."

"That's because if I do something bad will happen!" the Avatar yelps.

"You really do want me to steal your face, don't you?" An expression of schooled boredom returns to the Avatar's face. "Well, what's so bad?"

"There's this Chief. The Chief of the Northern Water Tribe. And they, the Water Tribe…they're fighting a war against the Air Nomads."

The spirit rolls his eyes. "I am quite aware, Avatar."

"And…my best friend. Her name is Jiang, and she and the Chief…"

"Chief Yakoda," Koh intones. Some part of him feels sick. It cannot be...

"Yes, him. Well, he and Jiang have this…this _thing_. They…well, I think they're in love. And if I stop the war, then they might end up together."

Koh is a very old spirit. He has been here since the very beginning, has seen nations rise and fall. Has witnessed wars of both human and spirit, has seen great tragedy and great comedy, has been privy to the most epic scandals. Has watched the story of the Two Lovers, repeated every fourth Avatar. The lovers who defy even death, who defy war and lies and hell itself for each other. The lovers who end invariably in tragedy.

The face stealer retreats quickly into the back. "Leave. Leave. I cannot bear it again. Not again. Never again."

"Please. An entire culture could be destroyed if you don't help."

Another time, another place, another tragedy on the brink. A dark, rusty chuckle comes from the depths of the cave. There is no real humor in. Instead there is a deep sadness, sadness the deepens yet further with his next words: "I cannot do it. Cannot watch again."

"Why _not_?!" the young man bellows. "What can't you bear?"

"You," Koh roars. "You damned fool. You can never let it go, can you? Even now. They are meant to be. Meant. I know. I have seen, have watched. And you! Every time."

"I do what every time?" the Avatar asks. He is surprisingly calm.

Koh, however, is finally cracking. "It's not just you."

"What happens, Koh?"

"You do not want to know, young Avatar. It is...it is too much."

"Please. It might...I think it might save Jiang."

JiangShuLaNanakiKupthikZuiOuranSamiQuekoJingNyaYsakaRimiLeeIshidaKolEstra...Katara. A thousand lives blurring and spinning and meshing. They blur save for the little Waterbender. The princess who led her very own revolution. Oh, she would want him to try. She would scream loudly and threaten him with a water whip. She would not stand for this.

"Let me tell you a story," Koh says. "It is about the old days, and the new days, and days in between. It is a story about two lovers..."


	2. Part One

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

**Notes: **The chapter in which there is Freaky Nightmares, Awkward Romance, and Spirit Bending = Baaaaaaad Juju.

Also, I was really surprised by the amount of reviews this thing generated. Haha. I was hoping people would like it, but this was surprising. Please keep up the feedback, it really does help keep me motivated to know that people are interested. That said, a thousand apologies for how long it took for this chapter to get out. I had to figure out a lot of plot points that I had sort of brushed aside earlier…

**

* * *

**

Part One

_The Lie That Stains Your Lips Tonight_

* * *

She twitches in her sleep. She has nightmares about his lifeless body. Her desperate attempts to wake him up. The smell of blood. Psychotic laughter. Images chasing each other around and around, the only constant his dead body in front of her. Pain and fear and raw hysteria crashing around her brain and clawing at her sanity until her subconscious can't bear the feeling of absolute failure because _he's not waking up_…

Katara wakes up screaming. She can't stop. The sound is a continuous siren wail, unflagging and piercing the night air as surely as a arrow. In her mind Katara struggles to stop, but still her body does not listen. Tears leak from her eyes and course down her face. Her voice shakes from the pressure of sustained noise. A trembling breath and then she's screaming again, screaming and screaming even though her mind is tell her to shut her damn mouth and _breathe_.

Beside her Zuko jerks up, finally waking. He's obviously a sound sleeper which is odd, isn't it? Seeing as how he was a refugee once and needed to be on his toes. Or maybe tonight is an exception. Fighting your homicidal sister must be exhausting. Why can't she stop screaming?

"Katara?" he says. His voice is husky from sleep and fear. "Katara, what's wrong?" But what can she say? Nothing, because the screams and the tears and the terrible feeling of fear will not stop. She needs someone to comfort her. She knows Zuko is not that person. Zuko does not comfort. He states blunt truths that make everyone feel inestimably worse.

He's opening his mouth. Katara wants to close her ears like she can her eyes. She does not want to hear his realism mingling with her unstoppable screams. Instead she is surprised by his soft words. "It's alright, Katara. I'm here. Always right here. I'll protect you."

Blunt truth as always, but comforting. Right but wrong. Like magic words to stop the screams. Or maybe her voice is just too hoarse to sustain it any longer. She is still crying though, crying and crying and crying like the world is ending. Which it did, yesterday. That's not why she's crying.

Now he is more awake. Hands drop onto her bare shoulders―warm from his bending, callused from his swords. Sure thumbs rub over her clavicles slowly, reassuringly. She wonders why he does not wipe her tears away but realizes somewhere in the back of her mind that they are just friends (supposedly) and she is with Aang (supposedly) and he is with Mai (supposedly). Just friends. He does not need to wipe away her tears, she can do it herself.

"Nightmare?" he asks. As if he doesn't know. Another situation she would roll her eyes. But the fear is too present for her to do something that might reassure him that she is fine. She is _not_ fine.

"Yes." The word is croaky and broken as if she is sick.

"What about?"

"You. Dying. I couldn't heal…" In the darkness, she curses her shaky tone and the death grip she has found for her hands around his wrists. He makes a soft murmur of encouragement that is all she needs to start babbling in her hoarse voice. "So much blood. And there was this man. This man with so many faces." Katara's breath comes quicker as she remembers her dream. But like the screaming, she can't stop. "And the koi from the pond were dancing around me and Yue…screamed. She screamed so loud and…and there were all these people and they were spinning around me and I couldn't…I tried to save you but you were dead and then you wouldn't wake up and I was trying so, so hard to make you just _wake up_…"

She realizes belatedly that she is gripping him tighter as her voice goes higher. She sounds like a girl with a broken heart. As if Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, Waterbending Master and Sifu of the Avatar has ever had a broken heart over a boy. (Only fractured, though she'll never let even that slip.) Even so, she sounds heartbroken, shattered. Like she just watched the man she loves die. (She did, just yesterday.) Which will not do because they are _friends_.

Katara doesn't have to worry about that long.

A hard kiss is pressed to her mouth. It is hot and his lips are chapped against hers and he is sort of clumsy and she can taste hints of morning breath even though it's the middle of the night. But it is…nice. His arms wrap around her shoulders, pull her into his chest and they fall back onto the pillows easily.

When they separate she curls against his chest. She no longer can bring herself to care if this is crossing their thin line in the sand of friendship. "Sleep," he tells her. Warm air tickles her hair. She tucks her head further under his chin and inhales the spicy scent that she knows is pure Zuko. "I'll watch over you."

Zuko speaks in blunt truths. Katara sleeps.

* * *

She wakes up in the morning, bleary but rested enough to face the day. Her face is buried in Zuko's neck and his arms are wrapped around her in a vice. He gives off heat and the feeling of soft skin. One of her hands is tucked under her chin, the other splayed against his chest and brushing against the new scar. She wonders vacantly if it hurts him. They are intertwined like lovers but it doesn't feel very romantic. It feels comforting, comfortable, like she does this every morning and likes doing it.

"Milord?" comes a timid voice from the vicinity of the doorway. "Milady?" Katara would get up and greet the girl, but Zuko's vice is truly a vice. She isn't escaping him until he wakes up. She is surprisingly content with that knowledge.

"We'll get up later," Katara says to Zuko's pale shoulder. She cannot move enough to unmuffle her words, but apparently the servant gets the message anyway. The great double doors to the Prince's bedroom are shut quietly.

"Thank you." Zuko's chest rumbles with the words. Katara can't stop a quicksilver smile at the feeling of it under her one palm. "You said it much more politely than I would have."

"You would have been nice," she says.

"Probably not," he counters.

"…probably not," she agrees.

They fall into silence. Or rather, not talking. Katara focuses in on the beating of his heart, sure and steady just up and to the left of her palm. She focuses on the in and out of his breathing. She focuses on the soft pop of sore, stiff joints as he stretches his legs out as best he can when they're tangled in hers. Focuses on the little sounds that assure her that despite yesterday, despite her encompassing nightmares he is _alive_.

Zuko does not listen. Not enough to recall the details later save as background noise. No, Zuko memorizes exactly how she is curled against him, every single place were her skin is flush against his. He memorizes the whisper of her silken legs against his and the calluses of her hand pressed to his still sensitive scar. He memorizes it all to store away in a secret part of his heart, to be brought out and cherished when life becomes too terrible to bear.

Unknown to the other, they both wonder what it would be like if this strange contentment was every morning.

* * *

Breakfast is a quiet affair, held in Zuko's room because they are far too lazy and sore to actually get up. They act like children and fight over the last pastry (Katara wins) and talk about how weird it is that the palace is mostly decorated with wood and paper when there are so many firebenders walking around in a fine snit most of the time. For the first time in a long time, they are teenagers being teenagers.

For the rest of the day they accomplish nothing, not even getting dressed. Towards evening they both take baths, but even that degenerates into a water fight. The servants are infinitely thankful when Katara merely bends it all back into the tub before stumbling off with her arm slung around Zuko's neck.

They spend the night talking more, and sometimes when they're feeling ridiculous or daring or something they kiss. Sometimes hard and sometimes soft and sometimes just plain weird. In fact, the whole night is just plain weird. But that is fine because they are happy and unstressed for the first time in what feels like forever. (If they thought about it, rationalized, then they'd realize it had been forever since they were not worrying about something.)

The servants, despite being grateful, whisper to each other. They talk of how Zuko looks at the Water girl, as if she is the most precious thing in the world. About how Katara smiles brighter whenever she looks at the Prince, as if he is the center of her small universe. About how even though they are "just friends", they thoughtlessly, easily act as though they are much more.

* * *

The palace begins being rebuilt. Katara is bored, wandering the halls in a daze and wondering how Sokka would take her strange half-romance with Zuko. Then a letter comes via messenger hawk that the gang is on the way, and they have a lot to talk about. The Fire Lord, Phoenix King, whatever he was but no longer is, is alive. That is all it says, and Katara forgets her fretting about Sokka in favor of fretting about Zuko.

Her fretting is in vain. If Zuko is pained by his father's near escape, then he doesn't show it. Or rather, his showing is in a strange way. For all purposes, he is as glacial as the pole she used to call her home. He doesn't seem to care about anything anymore except her and his uncle, and she knows somewhere deep inside that even those holds on his psyche are tenuous. He spends time hiding in himself, trying to forget the pain of his lost family.

Katara and Zuko sleep in the same room still. Zuko does not mention that fact, barely acknowledges it in fact, until he is wrapped around her like she is his only lifeline (she is). Katara rationalizes to herself that it is defense from the nightmares that plague her and catering to his suddenly fragile mindset. She doesn't know how to fix him but she wants to do so desperately.

* * *

Breakfast is a raucous affair. Mostly because the rest of the gang has arrived. Sokka spends breakfast eating loudly, complaining about his leg loudly, bragging loudly, and kissing Suki loudly. Toph does much the same, save for the fact that she complains about Sokka and she does not kiss Suki. The two of them, in fact, provide most of the noise, though Suki attempts to join in sometimes. Aang, surprisingly, is quiet.

When there is finally a break in the constant noise, he speaks up. "I'm going to spirit bend Azula."

Zuko freezes and Katara quickly slips her hand into his under the table. He grips her fingers tightly, so she squeezes a little just so he knows she doesn't mind. Even though she sort of does, because her fingers are getting crushed. "What?" the prince says.

"Spirit bending," Sokka crows. "Aang figured out how to take away someone's bending permanently. Why old Phoenix Dork is still alive. Isn't it cool?"

But it is Katara's turn to freeze. She remembers the strikes of Ty Lee's fists and the alien feel of no bending. Remembers how helpless she'd felt, how she'd wanted for a brief moment just to die because all of a sudden something inside her _died_. How terrible it had been, the nightmares that had chased her even after "successful" encounters against the acrobat. How she had sworn that should her loss ever become permanent, she would beg someone, _anyone_ to just kill her because what she would be going through would be worse than any gruesome torture.

"No," she breathes.

Aang turns to her, confusion written on the innocent lines of his face. "Why not, Katara? He's still alive. She'll still be alive. A life is a life, no matter the evil someone has done."

She rises jerkily from her seat. "No. Not that. Kill her, please. Let her die."

Everyone save for Zuko stares at her like she is insane. She doesn't think Zuko has ever experienced the helplessness brought by Ty Lee, but he knows that it scares her.

"Katara, this isn't the time for petty hate," Aang says condescendingly.

"This isn't hate," she says in a shrill voice. Her knuckles turn white as she grips Zuko's hand tighter. "This is mercy."

"Um…Katara…" Sokka starts.

She whirls on him. "To live without bending is to live without a large part of yourself. How would you feel if you suddenly couldn't use boomerang anymore? Better yet, knowing that you will never be able to use any weapon again. No, that doesn't even begin to describe it. Knowing that you have lost something so important and integral and…"

"Katara," Zuko says. He stands too and now everyone can see their interlaced fingers but Katara is too angry and too scared to even care that they might be found out. She looks at him and his eyes say that he's worried. She lets him lead her away from the table and into the hall. Vaguely she hears Aang's outraged yells but they sound desperately far away.

* * *

Katara listens dully as Aang explodes at her. Zuko is gone for now, taken to talk with his Uncle about something or another. It's probably good that he's gone, his presence would only make things worse now. Because Aang is furious. So very furious. About everything. He knows about the lightning and the shared bed and the screams in the night and the way that they have been acting every inch the comfortable lovers. She cannot bring herself to care even when he gives her his most injured look, asks her what he did wrong and why can't she love him?

Because Aang is not who she thought he was. Oh he is, somewhere deep down. Somewhere in there is the boy she found in the iceberg. This is not that boy. This is some stranger who tortures and calls it justice, who looks at her as a prize instead of a person, and who is the savior of the world but makes her think of terrible crimes that she knows he's never committed.

He screams.

Katara sits.

Somewhere deep inside, she gets the strangest sense of déjà vu.


	3. Part Two

**Disclaimer:**I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

**Notes:**The chapter in which there is Gratuitous Implied Sex, Disturbing Nightmares of Win, and King Arthur Parallels of Great Importance. BTW, Meadow Voles actually show up in Avatar. Cutest. Things. Ever. Trufax.

I KNOW THAT THIS IS A REPEAT CHAPTER. BUT READ IT. NAO. BECAUSE THERE IS EXTRA STUFF THAT GOT CUT OUT AND I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE IT WAS THE OLD VERSION UNTIL TODAY. SO IF YOU DON'T REREAD YOU WILL BE SUPER CONFUSED LATER.

And yeah, the next chapter is coming out relatively soon.

* * *

Part Two

_Still, You Said Forever_

* * *

Zuko realizes, a little late, that he is not very good with dressing himself. Or rather, dressing himself while injured. Every movement seems to jolt the still healing scar (a testament, he likes to think, to both his and Katara's monumental stubborness about death). He's lucky, really, that he even managed to get his pants on. The robe, staring evilly at him from the bed, is however a different matter. The robe knows that he can't get it on, and the robe knows that Zuko will try anyway because he's a stupid, stubborn boy. (The robe actually doesn't know any of this. The robe is, after all, inanimate.)

The Crown Prince grabs the robe defiantly and starts putting it on. It makes it over his shoulders okay, but the moment he tries to shove his left arm through one of the robe arms, pain jolts through his chest. Damn scar.

"You need some help with that?" He starts and turns at the feminine (if icily cold) voice of his girlfriend. Ex girlfriend. Whatever she is.

She starts walking toward him and he can't stop the warm smile that cracks his face like the sun through winter clouds. "Mai. You're okay." _Obviously_, a little voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Katara snaps. He ignores and walks toward her too. They meet halfway and his smile widens. "They let you out of prison?"

Mai smirks a little and reaches to help him with his robe. "My uncle pulled some strings." Of course, Zuko thinks sagely. Of course. "And it doesn't hurt when the new Fire Lord's your boyfriend..."

"So does this mean you don't hate me anymore?" Zuko asks. He needs reassurance. She is, after all, one of the people closest to him.

She flushes. It's the first time he's ever seen her blush. "I think it means I actually kind of like you."

They both know what's coming next. A nice, slow kiss. Rediscover each other, breathe in that feeling of home. Zuko expects comfort. Mai expects belonging. Neither of them really get it. So Mai presses a little closer, tries to remember if it was always this detached. And Zuko thinks unwillingly of sparkling blue eyes and kisses stolen for illicit comfort. They separate and smile at each other, neither willing to admit that that kiss was not everything they'd been dreaming of for the last few weeks.

Even so, Mai growls, "But don't ever break up with me again." She punctuates this declaration with pokes.

Then they hug, and Zuko thinks that this is more right than that kiss ever could have been.

* * *

Once Mai leaves, Zuko slumps onto the opulence that passes as his bed. It doesn't surprise him to see Katara walk in just moments after his new (old) girlfriend's departure. "She loves you," the Water Tribe girl says. Her voice is neutral, a passable imitation of Mai's bored tones. It doesn't suit Katara though.

"Stop talking like that," he sighs.

"Like what?" But her voice is more animated, and a hint of a smile is tugging at the left corner of her mouth. "Like your new girlfriend?"

"More like old girlfriend come back to haunt me," he says.

"I know she 'actually kind of likes' you, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind turning you into a pincushion for that comment."

* * *

Later that night, they are wrapped tightly in each other's embrace. Her lips are swollen from rough kisses. His aren't really, but he can feel the bruising beneath the surface. Zuko knows it's wrong. Katara doesn't care. Ah, so the roles reverse.

"Fuck," he breathes.

"Yeah," she agrees.

* * *

Katara is not surprised when Aang drags her from the party. In fact, she is more surprised that it has taken this long for him to get around to another yelling match. Or one sided argument. Or whatever it is that he does to her nowadays.

From an outsider's point of view, Aang has every right to be angry. She has slept in Zuko's bed every night, a pathetic attempt to stave off the nightmares. She has turned to him, trusted him above all others. More than anything else, she has ignored her duty as prize to the Avatar.

Because in the end, that is all she is. A prize to be handed to the winner.

"Aang…" she tries to placate. "We were just dancing."

"How could you? We're supposed to be together. We're supposed to. Aunt Wu said. She said," Aang roars. Katara realizes dully that he knows of Aunt Wu's fortune. She can't find the will to be enraged by this news. "And you said you were just confused. That it wasn't the right time. Now is the right time, Katara." He stops pacing to drop to his knees in front of her. Katara leans back a little in her chair, but does not remove her hand from where he clutches it between his hands.

"I saved the world for you," he whispers. A lie. A sweet, honeyed lie. Complete with soft grey eyes and a tender hand squeeze.

She gives him a caustic smile. "Alright."

His eyebrows scrunch together and his nose wrinkles. Confusion plays over his face and she sees a vague look of anger hidden in his expression. The caustic smile widens. "Alright. Ba Sing Se is for duty. Goodbye, Aang."

She leans forward to press a soft kiss in the middle of his forehead, right on the arrow. Then she stand and walks away, her hand slipping quickly from between his hands. "Katara," he shouts. Confusion, anger―Katara shakes her head and does not stop. Accusatory eyes burn her back, she does not care.

She walks back to the party with purpose in her step.

Ba Sing Se is for duty. The Fire Nation belongs to her.

* * *

The night slips past. For the first time in weeks, Katara sleeps separate from Zuko. Her terrified screams wake the entire guest wing.

* * *

"He's alive," Sokka assures her softly. His blue eyes, so similar to her own, are wide and pleading. "Please, Katara, believe me. It's okay. Aang is alive."

Aang is by her side, holding her hand in a way that would probably be comforting if she wasn't so terrified of him right now.

Suki stands uncomfortably in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and lower lip caught between her teeth. Katara wishes she could stop screaminglong enough to reassure the warriors that she is, in fact alright. (She's no such thing.) Sokka keeps attempting to calm her with assurances that Aang is alive, that Dad is alive, that Teo and Haru and Appa and Momo and all the other men in her life are _alive_...

"He's gone," she gasps. Part of her is relieved that the screaming part is over, another horrified at the onset of the crying and babbling stage. Like always, she can't seem to control herself. Too many emotions piling on top of each other at such a rate of speed she can't even process it. "Gone, gone, gone...couldn't save him..."

"Please, Katara," Aang pipes up. "It's okay."

She snarls at him through her tears. "It's not okay. I can't...can't live..."

Just then, Toph appears with a 'as close to frantic as he'll ever get' Zuko. "Katara," he says, racingto her side. He shoves both Sokka and Aang away from her unceremoniously. He doesn't seem to care about Sokka's "HEY!" and Aang's "What?!". Katara latches onto Zuko like he is her lifeline. He wraps his arms around her easily. She allows him to rock her slowly. Forgets the audience they have. Focuses in on his rough voice and the blunt truth she knows is coming. "I know, I know. Shush...I'm here. Right here."

In the background, Sokka is sprawled on the floor. He glances up at a smug looking Toph. "Why's Sparky's comfort working?"

"'Cos Katara needed to know he was alive," she says. "They've lost each other so many times...it's hard for them. Should of realized that, Sokka."

* * *

Katara spends the next morning asleep in Zuko's room, surrounded by the smell of him. The rest is punctuated by nightmares of varying sorts, most involving his dead body and all involving her waking up in tears. Thankfully there are only tears, not the screaming. Still, each time she awakes she reaches for his body before recalling that he left to visit his father. By the time he returns from his trip to the prison, she is better rested than she has been in weeks but suffering from puffy red eyes and a very stuffy nose.

He stumbles into the room, regal but on the verge of a breakdown. Suddenly puffy eyes and a stuffy nose seem trivial. All of those weeks of fretting come back full force as Katara launches herself off the bed to pull him into her arms. He falls into her embrace gratefully. She would complain of the sudden weight if she weren't so scared.

"Your mother?" she whispers.

"Gone," he hisses.

And he's crying, sobbing like a little boy. Kataramanages to lead him to the bed and sit them both down. He clutches her and she whispers soothing words and bits of lullabies.

* * *

Zuko is playing idly with the candles in her room, making them dance in time to his breathing. It is beautiful. For a moment, Katara places her hand against the doorjamb and simply watches. Slowly, softly―fire crackling minute in the background and his deep even breaths washing over her in waves. His gold eyes are bright even from this distance. He looks so much calmer, so much more at peace than he has in the last few weeks. She wonders how she could have ever hated him.

It is him who notices her first. Well, she noticed him the moment she walked in the door. But he says something first. That is how it always is, it seems. "Katara…are you…okay?"

"No." What use is it to sugar coat her word with needless lies? He will see through them anyway. They are too alike for lies. "We leave for Ba Sing Se tomorrow."

"Oh." Despite the calmness of the word, the candles flare high with his emotion.

"Tomorrow's for duty," she says. Ambiguous, to be sure. She steps further into the room but keeps her hand on the doorjamb, holding her back just the smallest bit. Zuko's eyes are narrowed. Concentration or confusion, lust or loathing? Katara doesn't really care. She tilts her head to the side, exposing part of her neck. "But tonight…is for me."

He jolts, narrowed eyes widening. "You're fourteen."

It is her turn to narrow her eyes. "Does that have anything to do with anything?"

"Yes it does," he growls. "You're too young. I'm too old."

"Only two years. Aang's two years younger than me," she counters.

"You hated me once." A feeble excuse and he knows it. "You didn't trust me." A stronger one and he knows that too.

"I hated you…but I always trusted you. Until…until Ba Sing Se." She walks further into the room and looks at him with blue eyes like the ocean. "In Ba Sing Se I trusted you…and I…I sort of loved you. And then when you left I felt like…like I was breaking. And I still trusted you but I wanted so badly not to…"

"So you trust me then?"

"Always." She is resolute and she takes a few more steps into the room to prove it. His resistance falters.

"…we're betraying Aang. Doing this."

It makes her pause. "I…I don't care." She does care. He seizes upon it.

"Even if you don't love him like that, you still love him. Betraying him like this, betraying him for a man he considers a good friend…"

There is consternation about her, and a sort of guarded guilt. "I can't care. I…Ba Sing Se. I promised. That when we got there I would be his girl. The prize," she notices his flinch, "has been given, alright? He has me. He knows it."

But Aang doesn't have her. And Zuko knows that. "Why?"

"Does it matter?"

They hold eye contact for a few minutes before he finally sighs in defeat. "It should. But I can't deny you anything."

* * *

She only sees it because of the crystals.

Bloody handprints stain the tunnel wall, the tunnel floor, the rounded platform. A man, burned, bloody, with clearly broken bones, and very near death if he is not already gone. It could be a torture scene. A woman less used to violence would scream. As it is Oma's breath catches in her throat.

"Shu?" she questions softly.

"O…ma?"

"Oh spirits," she breathes. Her steps are quick and light until she reaches his form. Her stomach revolts at the thought of looking at him closely when he is in this state. She forces herself to anyway. "Who…"

Shu tries to smile around his broken jaw. "Here. Knew…come."

Oma drops to her knees. "Who did this, Shu?" He shakes his head slowly. Her arms are trembling as she pulls him as gently as she can onto her lap. His head rests softly on her lap, like it has so many other times. How could she have taken those times for granted?

"Love you…"

"I love you too." Because what else can she say? He is about to die in her arms. It comes with the strangest sense of déjà vu.

"Les' meet again…nex' life…"

"Okay, dear one. Okay."

"'ll be…wai'ing…"

Shu dies.

Oma finally screams.

The crystals extinguish.

* * *

Zuko jerks up, sweating and afraid. He glances to his left, sees Katara nestled to his side like a meadow vole. It doesn't take long to reassure him that his disturbing nightmare (vision? dream?) is just that. He slumps back down and slings an arm back over his bedmate's waist.

Katara is sound asleep for the first time in almost two weeks. Zuko tangles his fingers in her loose brown hair and rubs the strands between his fingers. He is just as exhausted as she but her words keep echoing in his head. _"Tomorrow's for duty."_

So tomorrow he would lose her. Probably―definitely―to Aang. The thought makes his back stiffen and his arms tighten. She presses sleepily closer to his chest. Her hair tickles the sensitive skin of his neck. They are both naked and he is inordinately glad of that fact. Perhaps she was right. Tonight belongs to her. To them.

But…

She sighs. The breath ghosts down his neck and across his shoulder to dissipate into the night.

He cannot let her go. Not now.

A quiet murmur and she shifts in his hold.

Zuko holds back a growl. Bitch. She knew that when they did this, he wouldn't be able to let her go. Love is like that. Katara is like that. Addictive and once you had it…you couldn't let it go. Not for anything. Not even for the world.

She shifts again. "Zuko?" she croaks sleepily.

"Mmm?"

"Go to sleep," she mumbles. "Nighttime. Sleep. Good."

"Yeah," he says slowly. "Katara…"

An indistinct murmur is his only answer. She has fallen back to sleep.

"Never going to let you go now."


	4. Part Three

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

**Notes:** The chapter in which there is Kind Of Symbolic Stuff, Normal!Aang, Time Skipping, OMGwannabeOCC!Zuko, and More King Arthur Parallels of Debatable Importance.

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE REVISED SECOND (third according to FF) CHAPTER, YOU NEED TO. NAO. FOR IT EXPLAINS A LITTLE EXTRA. AND IS NEEDED.

Ooh, and bonus spoilers. Next chapter includes...KOH!

* * *

**Part Three**

_Not Something I Deserve_

* * *

A pale fireflower missing all its petals save one dangle gracelessly between Katara's slim fingers. Petals litter the floor around her feet―pale orange or blood red or butter yellow or delicate peach. The moonlight sets everything to glowing, making the fiery hues of the petals shimmer against the cool silvering gray of the balcony stones. It is a testament to her long forgotten childhood, maybe. Whispered secrets and childish games, played bitterly by a nymph long grown.

"It says you love me," she whispers. "Do you?"

"Yes," he admits.

She looks over her shoulder at him. A dark smile graces her face. The moon plays over her delicate features beautifully, marking her easily as a creature of the night. But he had always known that, hadn't he? She rose with the moon, he rose with the sun. Theoretically only together on eclipses. Yet now, on a balcony in front of his uncle's new teashop…maybe they've created their own eclipse. As if hearing his thoughts, her head tilts the littlest bit and the smile morphs from dark to sweet.

"Here," she says, proffering a strongly perfumed blue flower. It has edges marked with white and silver (maybe, perhaps, the silver is only the moonlight, or maybe not). Zuko accepts it gingerly, gripping the woody stem between nervous fingers. "It's a seaflower. See if I love you," she prompts.

"Katara, that's sil―"

She raises a finger before his lips as if to shush him. "Just see." A secretive smirk darts across her lips, then she goes back to surveying Ba Sing Se.

It still seems silly, no matter how intriguing that look she gave him was. Zuko indulges her (and himself, just a little bit) anyway.

Minutes later, the seaflower is bare except for one blue-with-moonlight-edges petal. "You love me," he says to her back. There's a bit of wonder in his voice.

"Always," she says. "It's the funny thing about destiny. It tends to separate you from those you want the most."

"Aren't these destiny?" he asks, gesturing toward the flower in his hand.

"No, no. Those are fate." She giggles. "Fate says we are forever, eternal. Fate says you and I are meant. Too many people confuse fate and destiny." Her shoulders droop a little and she lets out a near-inaudible sigh. "You know…I always wanted you."

"Me too," he says.

"I know. That's what makes it so hard."

"So you kissed him."

"Destiny."

"Of course."

She pivots a little. "I…fate is truth. Destiny…fate…I don't understand them but I know that they're completely different." Her eyes shimmer as they look up at him. "If it were just us…just the flowers and fate and _this_…"

Zuko sighs as her voice trembles and the flower drops from her hand. Dropping his own flower to the ground, he steps closer to her and wraps his arms around her shoulders. She steps into his embrace, pressing against his chest until they fit seamlessly and his scar aches with pressure. "They'll always be true. No matter where destiny takes us. Fate won."

"Forever," she sighs.

On the ground, the two petals clinging to their respective flowers finally give up, dancing off into the night on a suddenly fierce breeze. They spin off into the night, headed for the stars and forever circling each other.

_

* * *

_

three years later

* * *

Katara's nose is very cold. Actually, her whole face is chilled. But her nose…her nose feels like it might just fall off. She shouldn't be out here, watching a blizzard come in and fruitlessly practicing her bending by shaping the snowflakes. It's not worth it really―too cold for proper concentration and too cold for her health.

The wind is howling angrily, sending the snow spinning wildly around her. Beneath her the ice rolls with the forces of the waves. In the distance she can see white capped waves that would overturn all but a Fire Navy ship (strange how they have ships to survive her land's unpredictable weather while the Water Tribe is left with kayaks). The whole landscape seems to churn in defiance with the blue skies of earlier. It's dangerous to be out here now.

Aang would tell her she's being stupid. Which is, actually, why she's out here.

(Not because he called her stupid. Aang would never do such a thing except in teasing or gentle scolding.)

The prospect of what awaits her at home, however, is nigh unbearable. Aang, probably still holding that beautifully carved necklace (blue silk and orange-as-the-dawn stone) while looking pathetically hopeful. GranGran and Master Pakku (still too strange to call him Grandpa…) smiling beatifically as though she has finally achieved some sort of long sought prize. Sokka loudly making his opinion known that there would be _meat_ at the wedding.

It's the tiny cramped igloo or the blizzard. (Lies or dizzying fantasy.)

Wisely, Katara chooses the blizzard.

Almost an hour later, aforementioned blizzard has well and truly rolled in and Katara is sort of regretting her decision. If her nose was cold before, it is now positively frostbitten. She is frozen, angry, and confused. She's also very lost. Her bending has been lost to shaking limbs struggling to remain warm.

Everybody's probably very worried. Katara actually doesn't care. (For the first time in a long time.)

* * *

In the end, she wanders back home. She accepts the proffered necklace with proper demure delight. She plans the wedding to incorporate both Water Tribe and Air Nomad customs. She allows Sokka to be an overprotective big brother. She sits with Aang while he gets lectured by her father. She helps GranGran put together a bridal chest. She kisses Aang under the moonlight. She is the blushing bride-to-be.

She is a fucking good liar.

* * *

It all comes crumbling down when Zuko visits.

They spend most of the first day being politely civil. Or something to that effect. Katara isn't really sure because she spends most of it in a daze, looking at him and wondering how he's changed. How she's changed. If he still loves her. It's a little ridiculous. Nobody notices it enough to say anything though. (Actually, nobody knows. So of course they don't notice.)

They spend most of the second day catching up. Mostly by penguin sledding. And having bending battles. And abusing Sokka. (Yeah, good times.) But Katara sucessfully pretends that she is okay and she is fine and she is happy and she is not secretly wishing that the wedding plans she is dragged off to attend to are for Zuko and her.

They spend most of the third day...well, they don't talk the third day. Not until sundown. That's when everything crumbles.

It's in her igloo. Her personal one, not the family one. Once upon a time she wasn't even sure why she had it. Now she's pretty grateful she does.

"Engaged?" he whispers. He does not look surprised, nor betrayed. Merely resigned.

Katara shrugs as nonchalantly as she can. "What was I supposed to say? 'I can't because I'm in love with your best friend. You know, the one who's supposed to be married but can't be bothered to propose to his poor confused girlfriend. Yeah, that's my fault too. He's too stubborn―'"

"No."

"What?"

"No," he hisses through his teeth. He is so beautiful, even when he is so angry. Katara would do anything to be able to hide herself in him―to bury herself in his body and never ever come out. Just her and him and the steady 'thu-thump' of his heart. "No," he says again. Like he cannot think of anything better. Maybe he can't. "No, I'm not marrying her."

Katara tests her boundaries. "Why not?"

* * *

The sun barely breaks the horizon. Katara only knows that much because Zuko's temperature spikes with the new power. They are naked and pressed so close that she can almost imagine that her earlier wish has been granted. Just him and her and the steady 'thu-thump' of his heart. Now she knows why he is not marrying Mai. She's starting to think that he has a very good point.

"Never going to let you go," he whispers into her ear. His grip tightens around her waist. "Said it once, and I meant it. Never."

Silently, she thinks she's never going to let him go either.


	5. Part Four

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

**Notes: **The chapter in which there is Protective!Zuko, StrangelySubmissive!Katara, A Great Deal of Physical and Possible Emotional Abuse as Dealt by Aang, Dreams of Relative Importance. There is a distinct Lack of Koh and Action by Zuko, which will be made up for in the next chapter. Promise. :)

Well, finally getting back into the swing of writing after NaNo and the Christmas holidays. I suppose I should say Happy New Year. Even though it's what, like a week later? Whatever.

* * *

**Part Four**

_Bend or Break My Little Dear_

* * *

Zuko knows that he's going to have to let her go. He knows that because she has never been his, not to keep or to let go. The letting go is really only in his mind. That alone is enough to claw at his tattered heart.

The glass in his hand is fireproof, something he is immeasurably grateful for. It's also remarkably strong, something his is also immeasurably grateful for. Without those two factors, it would have either reformed or shattered under his ever increasing grip.

It's not like he can help it. A glass is an acceptable sacrifice. At least more acceptable than killing the world's savior for daring to lay a possessive hand on Katara's waist. Yes, yes, the glass would be acceptable collateral damage.

"Beautiful wedding, huh?" says Teo. He is the only one brave (or stupid, it's difficult to tell sometimes) enough to be next to Zuko right now. That could probably be attributed to the fact that everyone is currently dancing and Teo can't maneuver in such a crush of people.

Zuko looks over at Teo. The boy looks back with guileless grey eyes. Those eyes are enough to crush the angry retort that wants to rip its' way out of Zuko's mouth. Instead, he settles for a clipped, "Very." It's the only thing he can say. The only thing he _will_ say.

Because the wedding was beautiful. It really was.

Zuko just doesn't want to talk about it right now.

(It's a miracle he's kept his cool this long, sacrificial-lamb-glass notwithstanding. How exactly is he supposed to stand here, mingling and being a proper Firelord when the woman he's given his everything to is out there on the dance floor with a man that he can't quite bring himself to hate especially when he knows that she has also given him her everything and that man, that poor, oblivious man is left with mere scraps?)

"Yeah," Teo continues. As if he's oblivious to the fact that Zuko looks very much like he's looking for an excuse to set someone on fire. Who knows, maybe he really is that oblivious. "I didn't really get the ceremony though. It was so weird. I didn't think the Air Nomads got married anyway."

Now would be the time for deep, calming breaths. The sort of breathing that Zuko normally reserves for meditation. Henceforth, he rather thinks, he will just start breathing like that in general so as to remain somewhat in control of his rampaging emotions.

"They don't," Zuko says when he thinks that maybe the breathing has worked a little bit of magic on his temper. "Didn't. But Aang is setting a new precedent."

A new and unwelcome precedent, but nobody asked for Zuko's opinion now did they?

"That's pretty cool of him," Teo says.

(There is no earthly way, Zuko thinks, that Teo could be this stupid. Or this oblivious. Or this naïve. It has _got_ to be on purpose. Because only blind and deaf and socially retarded two year olds could think that it's okay to talk to Zuko right now.)

But lo, Teo is this stupid and oblivious and naïve, purposely or not. Because the crippled boy opens his mouth and keeps on talking. He babbles about the ceremony, and how there were elements from all the nation's ceremonies and wasn't that just so amazing and considerate of Aang? He babbles about his father's newest inventions and how irrigation is going to be so much nicer and maybe they can stop having to pull Aang in to keep a drought from happening in the Earth Kingdom. He babbles and babbles and babbles, but every few sentences there are words about Aang. Aang…and Katara. And the more Teo talks about Katara―the more she is brushed aside as some sort of accessory of Aang's, like a bracelet or that thrice damned wooden necklace that Aang wears like some sort of badge of honor―the angrier Zuko gets.

(That sacrificial-lamb-glass is perilously close to fulfilling its purpose.)

"―so Katara tried to bend the rain out of the clouds, but she got tired after only a little while," Teo says. "But that was okay, because Aang was there and he started bending the rain out. She's so lucky that he loves her. She'd be pretty weak without him."

"Teo," Zuko says. It's icy in tone, the sort of frost covered response that sends courtiers, advisors, and even Mai scurrying for some sort of cover. Because when Zuko is fiery, he is predictable and unlikely to do any sort of serious damage. When Zuko is icy, he is very, very likely to cause a great deal of damage.

"Yes?" Teo asks. His grey eyes are just as huge and guileless as they were when the thrice damned boy started talking. Zuko really couldn't care less.

"She is not weak, she is not an pretty decoration, and if you keep talking about her like that, I will _hurt_ you," Zuko snaps. That cold tone of voice is still there, ominous as can be.

Teo _finally_ gets it, mouth forming a little 'O' and eyes widening even more if that's possible. Gratifyingly, he looks rather terrified of the Firelord. Yes, Zuko likes inspiring fear, especially in stupid little pipsqueaks who wouldn't know a proverbial goddess if she came and bit him in the ass.

(Though if Katara did that Zuko might have some problems. The world wouldn't miss one annoying little cripple kid, right?)

In fact, biting of the ass or not, Zuko's contemplating maybe just offing the kid right now. The sacrificial-lamb-glass isn't nearly satisfying enough. (That, and it's proved to be an amazingly resilient sacrificial-lamb-glass.)

* * *

As it turns out, Zuko does not kill Teo. (Also, the sacrificial-lamb-glass survived. It was rather shocking that it made it, but it did. Yes, it is an amazingly resilient sacrificial-lamb-glass.) The reception continues well into the night, with much merrymaking and rejoicing by pretty much everyone except the bride and the Firelord.

The wedding night, wedding morning more like, is worse than the reception.

The bride smiles and laughs and moans and does all the right things…and then she cries and curls in on herself the moment her new husband is asleep. She cries until she has no tears left to cry, then resorts to dry sobs that make her abdomen ache. She does that for hours, the physical ache nothing compared to the pain that engulfs her heart mercilessly.

As for the Firelord…he does not cry. He does not do much of anything, really. Just mouths her name, over and over. Like a prayer.

* * *

Soon, the wedding party disperses. Zuko goes back to his Nation with something very close to a shattered heart, while Katara…stays. And wishes.

* * *

Her dreams a vivid. They didn't use to be, back before Zuko almost died. Her dreams then were vague things that disappeared as soon as the sun rose. These dreams are not vague, they do not disappear, and sometimes Katara catches those of her village giving her looks of fear or pity or scorn for her constant nightmares.

It's maybe so traumatic because it's always so vivid. There's always death and chaos and hate and pain. It might be the same dream, but it's too powerful to be overcome or forgotten. Everyone knows that by now, from her husband to the lowliest outcast, which inspires those looks of fear and pit and scorn.

They ask her what she dreams of, as if they care, as if it's important. (It is, it's so very important, but nobody knows that.) She doesn't tell them, because it's taboo. She cannot say: "I dream of the man I love, dead on the floor with the man I am married to standing above him. I dream of a many faced man that tells me it is best that I simply die, because I will not survive without my love. I dream and I dream, and in them my villain is always the man who is supposed to be my savior."

No, that would not do.

* * *

One morning, Katara wakes from her scant and restless hours of sleep to see Aang looking at her with some sort of revulsion. It's confusing to say the least. She knows that her eyes are probably red and her face puffy from crying, not to mention how utterly rumpled she must look just from sleeping. But it's not the sort of thing to inspire the look he's giving her now. After all, she looks like this most mornings nowadays.

He grabs her suddenly, hauling her upright out of the furs. His hand is a vice around her upper arm.

"Stop, Aang," Katara says, trying to tug her arm away from Aang's grasp. It's not use, he's got her in something of a death grip. The set of his jaw says he's not planning on releasing her anytime soon either. She feels the skin and muscle begin to bruise, feels the pain begin to web away from its origin up and down her arm. It's agony. She wonders how he ever got this strong without her noticing.

"What's going on?" Aang hisses instead. His grip tightens ever more.

Without meaning to, Katara whimpers. It hurts so badly and she is used to pain. No, she has no broken bones and yes, her battles are usually fought with elements instead of fists but _still_.

The whimper enrages him, she thinks. Why else would he use his grip are her arm to shake her, making her head snap back and forth just a bit as he slings her about like some child's doll?

"Nothing," Katara says. Her eyes are watery with tears, from pain and from guilt and from the desire for Zuko that is building up like some sort of flash flood. "Nothing, Aang."

She knows he's not convinced. He is giving her a look that tells her that he is not convinced. A look that says he is angry, that he is more than angry really. She knows that look. Just not directed at her. And it scares her, scares her so very much. "Aang?" she asks in a quiet, nonthreatening voice.

Aang doesn't answer. He shakes her instead, then tosses her as easily as he would a rag dolly. She wonders if that's all she is to him, but doesn't have time to dwell on it because soon enough her head is slamming into the unforgiving ice wall. She slides down to hit the floor, her body folded at a semi-awkward angle.

And Yue above, it _hurts_.

"I know about your _thing_," he growls, towering above her. "Zuko, Zuko!" he says, voice in a high falsetto probably meant to imitate her own. "Always talking about him in your sleep. Closing your eyes when we're together. I'm not Zuko. I'm _better_."

Except she rather thinks he isn't, as she stares up at his twisted face. Her vision is decidedly blurry, and her thought process is slowed. It's almost like the time that she was slammed into a pole while fighting Zuko except…she and Aang aren't supposed to be enemies.

"Now tell me, are you having an affair with him?" Aang says. It might be a standalone question, or the finish of a long speech. Katara isn't sure. Her hearing keeps going in and out and her vision keeps swimming.

"N-no," she croaks.

"Liar," he sneers. She barely even feels the kick that slams into her ribs. She's not sure if that's because it's a light blow or because she's simply losing consciousness.

* * *

The looks of fear and pity and scorn are still there, but strange skewed now. People do not ask about her bruises or her broken bones, because they never even know they existed. Katara heals the wounds on a daily basis before going out into the world looking like she is absolutely, perfectly _fine_. But people hear, faintly enough to be imagined but still there, the screams she lets out when she is thrown and the sobs that she can't hold back when she heals the bones of her fingers for the sixteenth time.

As always, Katara is a fucking good liar.

* * *

His dreams are nearly as vivid as hers. Why is unclear, but it's true. In the drank of night though, he sees tears and screams and Katara. And halfway around the world from the girl he loves, Zuko bolts upright in bed. There is a faint smell of burning silk as his hands catch fire out of reflex. Anger rages through his veins, potent as any alcohol. It's just a dream, he tells himself. Just a dream. So he dismisses the servants who come running, alerted by the smoke and the scent. He ignores the twisting of his gut that tells him he needs to get on an air balloon right _fucking _now and speed post haste to the South Pole. He does. She's not his to protect anymore.

(If he sends out one of his personal messenger hawks with an urgent letter to Katara, asking if she's alright, well, that's just brotherly concern. Sort of. Maybe.)


	6. Part Five

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

**Notes:** The chapter in which there is More Distinct Lack of Koh, More Distinct Lack of Action by Zuko, More Abuse as Dealt by Aang, Oblivious Brothers, Somewhat Rebellious Heroines, and a Sh!tload of Letters.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Some reviewers of the last chapter noted that they couldn't see Aang ever turning physically abusive. To this I say: season two, episode eleven. Physical violence with very little provocation. When you combine that with the fact he already displays signals of an emotionally abusive person (yeah, I actually put research into this) it's not such a great leap. And, yeah, I'm taking a little artistic license with Aang, but it's only a little stretching of things I could see him doing under the right circumstances.

* * *

**Part Five**

_And This is How the World Spins_

* * *

Zuko's private messenger hawk finds her in the depths of the Earth Kingdom. Though the Mechanist's irrigation works rather well, someone still needs to start the water flowing. It is to this end that Katara finds herself and several other waterbender under the command of Aang working near some tiny town.

(She loves missions such as this. Aang is almost normal then, like seeing the world reminds him of the days in their youth when the explored everything and laughed and were happy.)

It is night, and she only knows that the hawk is there because of the soft cry it lets out. The same cry that Zuko told her was only for her, a noise it had taught the hawk for her alone so that it would deliver a message only to her. It was only part of a small system of noises that the hawk had been trained to obey when it came to Katara, a system that Zuko had trained the hawk in mercilessly until it could be used to convey messages that Katara dare not write to him. (It was almost romantic. Only almost. But she kissed Zuko fiercely anyway, because almost romantic was about all they could afford.)

Katara coos back at it, and the hawk hops awkwardly into the moonlight. She would have offered the poor bird her arm, but she knows that as much as the hawk might like her it still does not really "like" her. She shuffles over to the sandy bank where the hawk stands. She is dripping water from her body and hair and probably looking like some sort of river spirit.

The bird did not protest to the water droplets that fall as she reaches for the message. It stays, stiff as all get out but not violent for which she is inordinately grateful. Without really thinking, she pulls the scroll out of the carrier tube.

Of course, she's wet, so the scroll is soon almost-ripping in her hands. She curses and bends the water out of the scroll as fast as she can, then bends the water away from her body. So there she is, dry as can be and naked as the day she was born, reading a scroll from her illicit lover. It's like something out of a very bad romance scroll. (A very, very bad one. The type that dictates that at some point during the next few minutes, her illicit lover is going to pop out of the bushes and ravish her.)

_Katara,_

_Are you alright?_

_Zuko_

She blinks twice. Trust Zuko to be so succinct. Also, trust him to use up a great deal of parchment to write so few kanji. Idiot.

* * *

"What's that?" Aang asks almost an hour later when she finally returns to camp. Katara tries for a noncommittal shrug, but inwardly curses for not answering by the river. (She could have written her reply in mud…or something. How hard would it be to write 'No, save me,' in mud?) And she knows that she's failed in her noncommittal shrug because Aang's eyes narrow dangerously.

She graces him with a beaming smile then, because she might as well make this work. "It's just a letter from Zuko." She sees Aang's eyes narrow further, sees how the others that surround the campfire to get a chance to talk to the Avatar notice the interlude. "He's so silly sometimes. See. He wrote: Katara. Are you alright? Zuko. And that's all. So silly, huh?" she says, voice just a tad breathier than usual.

But Aang relaxes. "That all?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, nodding. "I'm just going to write him back and tell him everything's fine. So silly of him to be worried when I have you here," she adds, because the smile she gets from Aang in return means there will be no pain and no tears for her tonight. "Good night, everyone!"

* * *

"Can I see your letter?" Aang asks casually even later that night when everyone has retired to their tents. From anyone else, the question would be out of curiosity. From Aang, from the stranger that Aang is now, the question makes Katara tremble. Because it is not a question, it is a demand. And her compliance is a given, because her fear will not allow otherwise. (She can't remember when she used to be brave. Has it only been three months since this hell began? Or longer?)

But she shoots him another (fakeforcedlying) smile that is near blinding in intensity. The sort of smile that says 'I'm-so-very-happy-and-this-smile-is-just-for-you' and it doesn't matter if it's true or not because it's a placating smile. "Oh! Yeah, when I'm finished, of course. I messed up the last one though. Kanji are so hard sometimes. Anyway, this one is almost done." This one, this fixed one that doesn't tell Zuko about how very scared Katara is all the time.

"Alright."

* * *

_Zuko,_

_I'm fine. The irrigation is working very well, and Aang has been so efficient that we're almost done here. I think I should tell you how silly you are to be worried when I'm on such a trivial mission. Plus, I have Aang here to protect me if anything goes wrong. I'm so safe, it's almost ridiculous._

_Katara_

_P.S. Your hawk was being very vocal. Maybe you should ask the hawk what's wrong._

* * *

When her letter is approved, Katara sends the messenger hawk off into the dawn light.

She doesn't think that Aang noticed the certain pattern of coos that Katara used on the hawk.

* * *

Exactly four days later, Zuko receives her letter in the middle of dinner. It's a private dinner with Mai (whom he is only friends with. They discussed this rather explicitly and utterly destroyed one of the throne rooms in the process, but it's all good now. Mostly.) She raises an eyebrow at the way he hurriedly grabs the scroll, but doesn't protest at the fact he's ignoring her in favor of some bit of parchment.

(He broke up with her via parchment, after all. It's hardly surprising, anymore. Also, the roast dogcow is rather good.)

Minutes later, Zuko throws that selfsame parchment to the ground and starts making utterly bizarre sounds in the direction of his hawk. It is mostly a series of whistles and coos, the sort that the hawk trainers use and that Mai had never known Zuko was capable of. The problem is, the sounds aren't in the traditional dialect of hawk trainers. And Mai would know, being a Fire Nation noblewoman and therefore trained in hawking as is properly fashionable. So Zuko, her ex-boyfriend and Lord of the Fire Nation, is speaking gibberish at his hawk.

(Mai is only slightly worried for his sanity at this point.)

"Shit," he says when the hawk starts making odd noises right back. "Shit. She couldn't...damn."

(Mai is only slightly more worried for his sanity at this point.)

"Mai," Zuko says, when the hawk has quieted and flown off to Agni only knows were. "Would you…Agni…"

"I'll go get Iroh," she says, rising from her chair gracefully. "I'm sure he must be around here somewhere. Probably flirting with Jun."

"Probably," Zuko says. He's feeling pretty grateful for Mai at this moment. More grateful, though, that Uncle is on his summer vacation to the Fire Nation.

* * *

The message relayed by the messenger hawk, verbal instead of written, plays over and over in his mind. One short whistle, four short coos, one long coo. _"I'm not safe."_

* * *

_Chief Sokka of the Kyoshi,_

_I am sorry to bother you during this time, as I know that it is the most intensive training season on Kyoshi. However, I'm bothered by something that I believe only you can answer. It has to do with Katara. I think something may be wrong with her, but I do not know what it is. Could you possibly know what is going on?_

_Fire Lord Zuko_

_

* * *

__Zuko,_

_What the hell? Why are you being so stiff? It's only the Kyoshi warriors who do the training. Us men take it as an opportunity to be lazy since the women are all off in the middle of nowhere doing pointless exercises. So far as I know, nothing's wrong with Katara. She seemed really cheerful in her last letter. You're being a worrywart._

_Sokka (Chief Sokka!)_

_

* * *

_

"GranGran," Katara says, smiling. It's been a while since she saw her grandmother. A very long while, due to the influx of mercy missions during the long dry summer months and the strange nature of Katara and Aang's power struggle. "It's good to see you."

The smile Katara gets in return is gentle and happy. It's the sort of smile that takes Katara back to when she was just a little girl. Maybe back when life wasn't grand, but it was good. When Dad was gone but Sokka was always there to protect and complain and joke. It's a good sort of smile, one that Katara should be grateful for but isn't because she's too tired now to be grateful.

"Katara," GranGran says back. Her voice is so old, so cracked. It didn't use to be like this. It used to be strong, powerful, commanding. Katara wonders if age has finally caught up to her formidable grandmother, or if maybe she herself is just a little more jaded than she used to be.

They sit in silence for a while. It's not that they don't have anything to talk about. It's just that neither is sure where to begin, where to start the outpouring of words that's sure to come as soon as one of them says something. It is enough, for now, to be quiet and enjoy each other's company. To sip tea and be mature and contemplate how the other has aged.

It is Katara who finally begins to speak. Because it is needed, because if the silence continues then the words of regret and accusation and fear will all come spilling out before she can reign them back it. "Aang says I'm going to be staying here in the village from now on," she says carefully. "Because of that run in, you know, the one with the saber toothed lion moose?"

She waits then. For outrage, for demands of rebellion, for something.

GranGran simply nods. Peacefully, contently. Like Aang forcing her granddaughter to remain in a little village is perfectly normal. Like once upon a time GranGran did not run away from much the same fate.

"I thought he would do as much," GranGran says slowly. "And he's right. You've been putting yourself in more and more dangerous situations. Why, just the other day I heard that you had fallen on the ice and broken your wrist."

Fallen on the ice and broken her wrist. It was the truth. Nobody needed to know the fall had been assisted. Too bad that joints were too difficult to heal without help. People were figuring out too much.

"Yes, GranGran," Katara says. "I did. But that was merely an accident. It isn't as if I go looking for trouble."

"Of course not," GranGran says. They fall into easy chatter then, about clothing and seal hunts and festivals and all that other meaningless gossip. They talk, and it might be a little forced, a little strained, but it's good. Except then, then GranGran sighs heavily and shifts.

"I do…I do wish you would stop writing to that Fire Nation boy," GranGran says.

Katara flinches. Stopping her paltry flow of letters to Zuko would be like cutting off her own arm. Worse, probably. "His name is Zuko," she says quietly. "And he's my best friend." My lover, my warmth, my sun.

"He's nothing but trouble," GranGran says, sounding very sure of that. If only she knew, Katara thinks not a little bitterly.

"Maybe," Katara agrees.

Because, maybe, he is.

* * *

"How was your grandmother's?" Aang asks. He sounds so cheerful, so like himself. His old self, really. Whatever that was. He's changed so much, with so little meaning, so little provocation. She forgets that for now, savors his smile and his casual greeting.

"It was great," Katara says. "Really great. She gave me some advice."

"What type?" Aang asks, all pleasant curiousity.

"Oh, you know," she replies vaugely, waving her hand in dismissal. "Just stuff. Sea prune stew recipies and all that."

He takes her reply at face value. Katara is getting to be a truly artful liar. (She thinks that happened around the same time as she stopped remembering the time before the fear.) "Anything else? I was sure she'd have something to say about Zuko." And now his voice is cold, cold as the snow that makes up their home.

"N-nothing important," Katara says.

* * *

The next day, the village healer helps Katara set her wrists and jaw.

It's terrible, the healer says, how clumsy Katara is.

Katara nods and smiles.

* * *

He tells her, "Stop writing."

She says, "No."

Because this one thing, he cannot take away from her.

He cannot take Zuko.

(If he does, she will break. If he does, she will die.)

* * *

He says, "I'm leaving."

She says, "Okay."

He says, "Be good."

She says, "Okay."

He says, "Remember what happens if you have been bad."

She looks up with dull eyes and says, "Okay."

* * *

Time passes, days and weeks and months and not-quite-a-year-yet. Zuko and Katara exchange letters with decreasing frequency, until Zuko eventually notices that the letters only come when Aang is away on a mission (because Katara, he knows from the international gossip, is confined to her Southern Tribe home). Each time, the hawk repeats that same message. And each time, Zuko's heart grips with a little more fear.

He begins to wonder if maybe the danger is not from any previously suspected sources…but from the boy-savior-man who is almost a strange to him now. He wonders, but he cannot do anything. Because the world needs a savior, and Zuko is hardly it.

(He would be for her though.)


	7. Intermission Two

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

**Notes:** The chapter in which Koh Finally Returns.

Not much else to say, really. Oh, except that I'm announcing something a little early. It looks like this story is gonna hit 100 reviews. If (when) that happens, the 100th reviewer can have a Zutara gift fic of their choosing and a shoutout in my AN. The 123rd reviewer (here's to hoping!) gets a small Zutara multi chapter fic of their choosing and a shoutout in my AN. Yep.

* * *

"_Evil and good are always at war inside you. It is your nature, your legacy. But there is a bright side. What happened generations ago, can be resolved now. By you. Because of your legacy, you alone can cleanse the sins."_

**

* * *

**

**Intermission Two**

* * *

"I don't believe this!" the Avatar screams. They are fighting words, of course. The angry sort of words closely followed by physical violence.

"Then don't," Koh says carelessly. He turns and winds his way back through the roots of the tree. He is getting old, is feeling old. He cannot move as quickly as he once did and it pains him to remember a time such as this when his listener was not a man but a girl-woman-warrior.

"What do you mean, don't?" the man screams again.

Another twist, and Koh can peer at the Avatar through a gap in the roots. "I mean," he enunciates, "don't believe me if you don't want to. I won't make you believe me. Rather, I can't make you believe me. Why shoulder I try?"

The Avatar quiets, clearly quite put out by this. Koh wonders if maybe the Avatar wants a fight. Probably.

"Koh…" the Avatar says. "I…Avatar Aang is still considered one of the greatest Avatar's ever. He saved the world."

"Saved the world, of course," Koh agrees. "He came to me for help once, you know. To save the Northern Water Tribe, in fact. They were on the brink of total annihilation. He had to find Tui and La. Do you know what I told him?"

The Avatar slumps to the ground gracelessly. His shoulders droop almost pathetically. "What?" he asks, even though his tone says he really doesn't want to know.

"I told him that they were meant. I told him. Maybe I should have told him more clearly, but still. I told him. Tui and La, Oma and Shu, Zuko and Katara..." Chief Yakoda of the Northern Water Tribe and Priestess Jiang of the Eastern Air Temple, "…their names don't matter. They are _meant_. They are two halves of the very same whole. The Two Lovers."

There isn't a great deal of background noise in the Spirit World. It's too empty and a little too dead to have the constant noise of the mortal world. Koh doesn't mind the lack of sound, normally. But now the Avatar's breathing seems too loud, too overpowering. It invades Koh's protective shadows.

"But Katara was married to Avatar Aang," the Avatar says. "She couldn't have been…why…Jiang isn't like that!"

Koh says nothing, simply retreats back into the shadows. Jiang may not be like that, but she is La. She is Shu. She is Katsuka. She is Li. She is Akuza. She is _Katara._ She is a soul that has a thousand times over chosen death rather than loosing her lover.

"She could be, though," the Avatar whispers. He sounds sick. "She could be…couldn't she? She could be Katara. She could be madly in love with Yakoda, suffering and suffering and suffering because she is so, so in love with him. And…and I could be Avatar Aang. I could pin her because…because I don't want to see. That could be us."

The unspoken:

_That is us._


	8. Part Six

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

**Notes:** The chapter in which there is Original Fan Characters Whom I Love, Advice Giving, The Comet Festival, Overprotective!Sokka, , aaaaaand….Zutara Reunion!!!!!

**coughs**

Alright people, start reading! And review. You just might get a prize. :3

* * *

**Part Six**

_Need a Hand to Hold_

* * *

She doesn't notice the broken rib until almost a month after in happens. It hadn't punctured anything, so perhaps her body had written it off as unimportant. Or maybe she's just too used to the constant tightening pain in her chest to really notice something so trivial as a possibly broken rib. Whichever.

When she notices it though, it's because all of a sudden she's coughing up blood onto the snow. There's not enough of it to make the snow red, just a strangely pretty pink color. Her lips are dribbling blood and spit, but she can't make herself look away from the pink blotch in the snow.

"Sifu Katara?" a little girl's voice pipes in. It sounds dreadfully far away.

"I'm fine," Katara says. For a minute, she convinces herself that she really is. Alright, that is. The blood is just some sort of odd symptom of the cold she's been nursing for the past couple of days. It's not an actual injury. Just a symptom that will go away if she drinks enough sea prune stew.

One of the little boys, Nenak, tugs gently at her parka. "Sifu Katara, are you sick?"

Katara tries to smile but she can't. Her whole chest is seizing up as her lungs expel more blood. Her throat is burning and the blood tastes strangely coppery and salty on her tongue. She wants the taste to go away, the smell to go away. More than anything, she wants the now red part of the snow to turn white again.

Nenak sounds scared. "Sifu, maybe you should go see Mommy."

That thought makes Katara's blood run cold. Nenak's mother, Keena, is the new assistant healer of the village. That shouldn't mean much, except Keena seems to see something in Katara's "injuries" that the rest of the village doesn't. And every time Keena's ice blue eyes land on Katara's Ember Sea blue…something in Katara is scared that Keena knows more than she should.

"Nenak…" Katara says. Placatingly. "It's…nothing." Nothing, nothing, _nothing_. She forces herself to stand upright and look around, like she's proving to them all that she is fine and that this was nothing. The others in her little class―Hanka, Masanak, and Ka'ea―all look at her with wary belief.

But Nenak is not placated. "Sifu, we should see Mommy."

She looks down and he looks up. It's his eyes that break her. Unlike her and his mother and all of the children around them, Nenak lacks the blue eyes that so clearly mark a descendent of the Water Tribe. His are, instead, a bright, clear gold that reminds her of the filigree that decorated the Fire Nation Palace. They are eyes that remind her of another time.

"Alright," she says. "We'll go see Keena." Nenak looks pleased at this, maybe even a little bit smug. But also looks scared, and when he looks down at the bloody patch of snow, he seems just a tad paler. That makes her wonder.

Katara dismisses the class and, with Nenak in the lead, goes to the village healing hut. She walks slowly and is surprised that Nenak does not tug her along or run off. He holds her hand and keeps pace with her. And he talks. A lot. But it's exactly the sort of chatter that requires no participation on her part and is more to expel some of his own energy.

* * *

Keena looks at Katara with knowing eyes. Nenak sits in the corner, working on a play spear for warrior training. His brow is furrowed and his lower lip stuck out in utter concentration. He looks so serious, so focused. Katara would rather watch him than look back at the eyes that say a thousand things that Katara has tried so hard to hide.

"You coughed up blood," Keena says quietly. "That is hardly a symptom of a cold."

Katara is still looking at Nenak, but she says, "I know. It's…it's…"

"One of your ribs is broken. You stressed it today and I'd say that you injured a lung somehow," Keena says calmly. "It's not particularly life threatening at this point, but it quickly could be. Why didn't you come in to have this fixed earlier?"

Unable to stare at Nenak any longer, Katara reluctantly looks at Keena. "I…I didn't know," she whispers. "It wasn't really…"

"The biggest concern?" Keena says sardonically, "I'm sure. You probably had more pressing things to worry about. Things like a concussion and probably a broken arm. Not to mention the bruises." Heart frozen in her chest, Katara tries to speak. To deny. It doesn't work. Her face has said it all. Keena has a look of both wisdom and sadness. "All dealt by the man who was supposed to protect you from the world. By your husband."

A horrified half whine rises out of Katara throat involuntarily.

Keena leans back and looks at Katara thoughtfully. "So, our savior is your demon? I wonder then, who is supposed to play your savior?"

Zuko, Katara thinks. But he can't save her. Not without exposing Aang. Not without destroying the perfectly fragile peace that can barely keep the balance. But he's still her savior.

When Katara does not say a name out loud, Keena lets out a very long, drawn out sigh. "I can heal the rib. I can keep my silence for now. But I warn you now, Katara daughter of Kya…it will never get better. You may think it will, but it won't. And one day, you will _have_ to fight back."

There is absolute steel in the woman's voice. A steel that Katara rather thinks is earned rather than born with. She tries to search Keena's face with her eyes, but all she reads is that steel barely covered with a veneer of gentility and feminity.

Keena catches the searching look. Her smile is a little bitter. "I was beaten, raped, trapped. The man was my husband. I thought he was only doing in for my own good. I didn't say anything. Not for years and years. But then Nenak was born with eyes the wrong color. Not the blue they were supposed to be, but the soft gold of my lover. My husband wanted to kill Nenak. And I would not let that man harm my son. As the moon rose that night, I killed him. I sent water down his throat and watched him drown. I fought back. You will too one day. You will fight back and you will be strong enough to get away."

Katara's heart is pounding in her chest. She looks over at Nenak and imagines him with lighter skin and darker hair, with brighter gold eyes and a slower smile. She thinks, That could be my child. And she thinks, If it were, I would fight and kill and die for him.

* * *

It is late when Katara gets home. She is exhausted from her talk with Keena and from the rib healing. Aang is already waiting with some food on the table. He's in a good mood, which is rather surprising considering how late she is. She asks, as she serves herself some fish, what has him so pleased. It's the Comet Festival. To celebrate the coming of the comet as well as the defeat of the Firelord and therefore the return of unity. The first in four years as the world has been too busy rebuilding to even think of something so monumental as a four nation festival. She smiles and nods in all the right places.

* * *

At almost midnight, Katara bolts awake. She is sweating hard and breathing even harder, but it's not from a nightmare. Actually, for the first time in almost four years, she has had a dream instead of a nightmare. But the dream is full of warm golden eyes and hot callused hands and a scratchy baritone voice whispering sweet nothings.

She looks across the room to where Aang is sleeping on his own fur. He is dead to the world, still lost in his own dreamland. That's something to be grateful for, at least.

A deep breath, a hand pressed to her still rapidly beating heart. It doesn't do much but it does enough.

Zuko. She's going to see Zuko at the festival. She has to. And Aang can't stop her. Not without questioning. Questioning that Aang can't really afford to have happen.

When she finally falls back asleep, she has a smile on her face.

* * *

"Katara!" Sokka yells. He's got an arm wrapped tightly around Suki's waist, which looks suspiciously large. Next to them both is Toph, who is as short as ever but distinctly curvier than before. The three of them are a small cluster off to the side of the ongoing festivities. Even though they're barely twenty yards away, it takes Katara a good ten minutes to successfully weave through the crowd to them.

(It gives her time to brace for the hugs she knows will happen. She takes deep breathes and thinks of calm lakes. When she isn't trying to shove some middle aged guy off her toes.)

When she surfaces from the crowd, she is grabbed by three pairs of arms into a tight hug that leaves her almost breathless. And they're all talking at once. Toph's "You don't write, you don't visit, you don't throw parties…and there I was thinking you were little Miss Sugar Sparkly Bonding Time." mixing with Sokka's "And you just don't understand how difficult it is to be surrounded by warrior women all the time who just can't appreciate a good sea prune stew with seal jerky!" and Suki's "Your thrice Spirits damned brother is just ridiculous. The things he asks me to make. Do I look like a cook?" is near headache inducing.

But she doesn't say so, doesn't pull away from their grasping arms. It feels too good to be wanted. To be held. She would cry but she's beginning to think she's forgotten how. "I missed you guys," she whispers. It's lost in the cacophony of complaints and compliments and Spirits know what else. She said it anyway.

"Hey, don't I get a hug?"

And…everything seems just a tiny bit lighter. Her heart beats faster, her lungs take in more oxygen, the sounds are clearer, the smells are sweeter. She wonders what sort of daze she's been wandering around in.

"Zuko!" she cries. She doesn't pull away from the still loud crowd of the former Gaang, rather lets him come to her. But she relaxes back into his hold when he steps up to hug her, and as she's cuddled in the circle of people that she loves best…she thinks she's home.

* * *

So Suki is pregnant and Mai is engaged to Haru and Ty Lee is the most popular girl on Kyoshi Island and Toph has resumed kicking butt as the Blind Bandit and Teo has started helping other kids injured by the war and Haru's mustache still looks ridiculous and Sokka is growing out his hair and Jet really is dead but the rest of the Freedom Fighters are fine and Meng is actually sort of pretty now and there's more but Katara's head is reeling with what she's learned so far.

She's sitting in the shade of one of the food pavilions, sipping at mango juice. Exhausted, but pleased nonetheless. She's seen her family again. Talked with her old friends. Avoided Aang. It's been a good day, but it's also been a very hard one. So she's sort of hiding now, except not because actually hiding would probably get her in trouble. Hardly anybody recognizes her though―she's not very distinctive when compared with all the other Water Tribe girls, after all―and that's a blessing.

Sokka finds her quickly enough though. He's sipping mango juice too, but he's also got an ungodly amount of seal jerky in a little tote bag. He sits next to her and brandishes a piece of seal jerky in her direction, maybe as an offering of peace.

Katara takes it and starts nibbling on it dutifully.

Sokka takes this as a chance to start talking. For once though, he's quiet. "So, you haven't been writing much, lately. And you never visit."

She swallows the little bit of jerky and pastes on a bright smile. "Oh, Sokka. You know I've just been busy."

But he doesn't look convinced. "I thought that was it, at first. But Katara, Zuko wrote me a while ago and said that he thought you were in trouble. He wanted to know if I had noticed. And I hadn't. I had just…thought you were busy."

A fear starts to rise in Katara. Fear of discovery. It was stupid of her to try to alert Zuko all those months ago. To still tell him that she's not safe. Stupid because if he figures it out, if he comes charging to her rescue like she knows he would, then everything will come crashing down. And that's just if Zuko knows. If Sokka knew…

Oh Yue, what would Sokka think of her? Would he think she deserved it? Would he hate her? Would he be disappointed?

Bile burns and claws at her throat. She swallows it down forcefully. Her smile brightens even further. "I really am just busy," she says.

Sokka shakes his head. The seal jerky lays abandoned next to him. "No. There's something wrong. I know it. There _is_."

"There isn't," she says forcefully.

"Katara, you're my baby sister. What's wrong? Just tell me so I can fix it!" Sokka says, grabbing her upper arm abruptly. She flinches away from the touch before realizing the hand holding her is gentle, not bruising. She thinks of the calm lakes again, but when she meets Sokka's eyes he looks very thoughtful.

"I…I gotta go," she says quietly.

He lets her arm go. "This isn't over, Katara."

She doesn't answer him. She runs instead, because that's what she's gotten best at.

* * *

Once Upon a Time, there was a little girl who believed in fairytales. She wasn't told them as a child, because the ones her mother told are long forgotten and Kanna wasn't the sort to let such fancies into a young girl's head. But the little girl believed in them anyway. She believed with the fervor usually reserved for greater things. The little girl never really stopped believing until her Prince turned into a Beast and the Beast turned into a Not-Quite-Prince.

The little girl grew up then. The little girl grew up and traded her snow tiaras for black eyes.

* * *

Katara is still running when she slams against a chest that she knows only too well. So she doesn't apologize, just wraps her arms around that chest and holds on for dear life. Arms―broad, muscled arms with strong tendons and bones, protecting arms―are dropped gently around her upper back and waist, pulling her just a hair closer.

"What's wrong?" Zuko asks. His breath smells like woodsmoke and she breathes it in to keep herself from falling apart. Her fingers tangle relentlessly into his official Firelord robes, tightening until he couldn't pull away if he wanted too. The fabric stretches to accomodate her grip, but she knows if she holds much tighter the fabric will rib. She doesn't care. She doesn't think he does either.

She shakes her head against his chest. "Nothing," she whispers. "Nothing's wrong." Nothing is ever wrong as long as he's holding her.

"Liar," he says.

"Yeah," she agrees. Because it's true and the minute his arms fall from her body she's going to feel the pain all over again. "But I…"

"I know," he sighs.

"…hold me?" Her grip on him tightens. "Please?"

"I never let you go in the first place," he says.


	9. Part Seven

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

**Notes:** The chapter in which there is REVEALING OF MANY MOTIVATIONS, Drunk!Katara, Snarky!Wise!Jun, Awkward Sort Of Aang Redemption, King Arthur Parallels That Would Make Medievalists Roll In Their Graves, Toph and Sokka Talking, More Zutara Reunion, Gratuitous Sex, and Something Approaching Discovery of Stuff. Yeah. :D JUN! **coughs**

W00ting shout out for** InuStarAngel** who was the 100th reviewer and **dancingqueensillystring** who was the 101st. I luff dem so much. **huggles both** **dancingqueensillystring **got the prize giftfic, called _Thicker Than Blood _(shameless plugging). Speaking of which, 123rd reviewer gets a Zutara giftfic. It will either be a two/three shot or a very long one shot, depending on how much plot I have.

I'm slowly making my way through this story with a machete and a ball point pen. It's difficult to tell who's winning at this point. But whatever. I'll win eventually. Probably.

* * *

**Part Seven**

_The Lie That Stains Your Lips Tonight_

* * *

Katara had never been drunk before. She'd had plenty of reasons to be, but never an opportunity. Then there were reasons, and there was a supposedly upscale bar just down the street, and suddenly Katara was sitting precariously on her barstool staring with glassy eyes at what was probably her sixth shot of sake.

Alcohol, she is delighted to say, does exactly what everybody always says it will. Mostly. It doesn't take all the pain, not like being in Zuko's arms does, but it dulls it. Numbs it. It's enough. She thinks she might need to take a whole crate of sake back to the South Pole with her when she leaves Maybe two crates, actually.

The fingers of her left hand swirl lazily above her shot cup, taking the alcohol with it in weak little circles. It's more entertaining than it really should be. She drops her hold on the alcohol and slumps onto the bar with a moan and a giggle.

There's a low, sultry snicker from Katara's right. Katara wiggles a little until she can look at the person,. It turns out to be that bounty hunter. Whatever her name was. It's a testament to the alcohol that Katara doesn't feel even a little frightened. Jun's red lips tilt into a taunting smile. "Little girl can't hold her drink?" she says in that same low voice. It's been over four years and Jun still sounds exactly the same.

"Hmm," Katara mumbles. Not because she can't talk, because Katara is pretty sure she's not so drunk that her lips cannot form the words that her mind puts together. But because Katara is drunk enough that she is not really ready to get into conversation. Especially not with someone like Jun.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jun says sardonically. The woman turns her eyes to the barkeep and motions for some sake of her own, which the barkeep slams on the counter on his way to sort out the brewing fist fight at the other end of the bar. Jun picks up her cup and swirls the sake around, but her eyes have focused back on Katara.

Katara doesn't like it.

Jun doesn't care.

"So what's it like being married to the savior of the known world?" Jun asks. She takes a small sip of her sake while waiting for Katara to answer. Katara merely blinks very, very slowly at Jun. What, Katara wonders, is one supposed to tell a near stranger about being married to Aang? The obvious lies about how he's wonderful and amazing and gentle and kind and perfect, or the hidden truth about how Katara is constantly torn between hatred, terror, and longing for the sweet little boy she used to know when she's confronted with the monster that is her husband. So Katara doesn't say anything at all.

"That great, huh?" Jun says. She doesn't appear to care all that much. "Strange that the girl who has it all, including the hero husband, is sitting in a seedy bar getting drunk off her ass alone after spending most of the past couple of days attempting to avoid most of her old friends and flinching at shadows."

Blue eyes widen a fraction. Tanned skin goes impossibly pale. A rattling breath slips past plush if slightly scarred lips. Katara's house of cards comes crumbling down. Jun knows. How she knows, Katara has no idea. But Jun _knows_ and it spells certain doom.

"I…" Katara starts without really thinking. Denial is always a good route, right? "No, Aang isn't…whatever you _think_ you…no." Perhaps, Katara thinks miserably as she sees the knowing look in Jun's eyes, denial is only a good route when you honestly want to deny the truth.

"Right, sure," Jun says in a falsely agreeable voice. And it is falsely agreeable, because no matter how nice and obliging Jun's voice promises to be, Jun's face is telling a very different story much along the lines of the bearded cat that got the canary mouse. "Because the girl who is widely acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best, waterbenders in the world has a really good reason to be acting like the frightened housewife the Avatar claims you've become."

Katara blinks a few times. "What?" she says, lifting her head a little.

The snort Jun lets out is hardly elegant. "I'm somehow unsurprised that you haven't heard. The Avatar has been saying the reason you never leave the South Pole anymore is that you had a very bad experience in the Earth Kingdom and you've become rather timid since then. Considering the state you were in when you left this Kingdom last, people have believed it. I suppose the shocked look on your face answers some of my questions."

So, there it is. The reason, Katara realizes dully, that no one had found it odd that she had not visited. Why all of the letters from Sokka and Suki and Ty Lee and Mai and Teo and the Duke and Iroh and Toph had very carefully skirted the issue of her leaving the South Pole for any reason. Hell, why _Zuko_ had carefully skirted the issue. And Jun is right, people would believe that she was feeling frightened. The last time she had been outside the South Pole, she had tried to run away from Aang. She remembered Aang catching up with her, and him being in the Avatar State, and a canyon. After that, her mind stubbornly refused to supply details of what had happened.

"What?" Katara whispers again.

Jun shrugs carelessly. "Well, better you than me. Couldn't stand being cooped up on a giant ice-burg while my husband traveled around the world playing savior. Especially if I kept showing up with mysterious injuries that I couldn't tell anybody about. And most especially not if I had the Fire Lord looking at me the way he does at you. Good night."

Jun drops a few coppers on the bar and walks away easily. Like they'd just had a casual talk about the weather, or something equally insignificant. "Wait," Katara calls, forcing herself to sit up. She turns slightly on the bar stool to see Jun waiting near the door impatiently. Katara gets off her barstool and walks unsteadily over to Jun.

Looking up at the woman now, Katara wonders what made Jun into a bounty hunter. Beautiful enough, intelligent enough, sexy enough, tough enough to be so much more than that. But now's not the time for contemplation, because each moment that passes by makes Jun look more and more impatient.

"Jun, what did you mean by that last bit? The part about…about Zuko?" Katara asks quietly.

"I've been saying it from the first day I met him. He's in love with you. Stupid boy." Jun's eyes get a faraway look and the impatience in her expression fades into something almost like fondness. "Yelling and threatening and stamping his feet like a brat. And he denied it, but there was something so soft in his eyes when he talked of the Water Tribe girl traveling with the Avatar."

Katara's heart squeezes with emotion. "He couldn't of…" she says.

Jun abruptly shakes herself and blinks down at Katara. "He did. Remember, people see the truth the clearest when they are the furthest from the situation. Now, good night."

She doesn't even give Katara time to react before she is walking out the doors into the well lit streets.

* * *

Aang stares moodily at the flickering candles on his meditation table. Supposedly, he's out here doing breathing exercises. But his mind just won't focus and his breathing is all over the place. Perhaps it was a doomed process from the start.

The door that leads out to the deck Aang is "meditating" on creaks open slowly. Aang opens his mouth the ask who it is when Zuko's soft spoken, crackling, "Hey," interrupts him. That one word sends both relief and anger crashing through Aang, leaving him shaking just a bit in its wake.

"What's wrong?" Zuko asks, tilting his head to one side to get a better look at Aang even as he sits down. His shaggy hair sways with the movement, and Aang silently wonders if maybe that's why Katara watches his friend with such affection. But that's a stupid thought. Aang rubs at the back of his bald head and sighs heavily.

"I'm not sure," Aang says. "Nothing, probably."

Zuko looks up at the stars above them, a strange, faraway look in his eyes. "Since when is it nothing if you and your wife spend the night in different rooms?"

A soft snort escapes Aang before he can think to rein it in. The sound causes Zuko to look away from the stars, to look straight into Aang's eyes. Those eyes that seem to see everything. Aang feels nearly ashamed.

What would Zuko think if he knew just what Aang has done to Katara? Challenge him to an Agni Kai, probably. One to the death. For Katara's honor. And her safety. And her happiness. Aang hangs his head and almost thinks he'd deserve it.

"I don't know," he says, instead of confessing. What would that prove, anyway? "Things were…they were odd between us. Before the wedding. I wasn't sure why. I figured that maybe it was just my imagination. That when the wedding happened it would all just go away."

Some crickets try to fill the silence with their calls. Aang knows he has to keep going, but to be honest he isn't totally sure how to.

"But it didn't," Zuko says. Aang glances over at the nearly guilty tone of the older man's voice. Questioning grey meets guarded gold. They both hold the gaze for a few moments before looking away quickly.

"No," Aang admits. "It got worse. There's this huge gulf between us, and I have no idea how to fix it. I don't even know if I _can _fix it." And he knows he can't, really. How could she forgive something like what he has put her through? And in the end, he still doesn't think he's been entirely wrong. Not really.

"Do you even want to fix it?" Zuko asks.

"Of course," Aang says. "Of course I want to fix it. Why wouldn't I want to fix it? It's just that sometimes it's just so _hard._ I go in, and I want to say that I'm sorry, that I want to fix everything, and instead I get so…"

"Angry?" Zuko offers.

Aang shrugs noncommittally. "I guess so." He stops himself then, lets out a breath and straightens his spine. "No, not really. I'm furious. Blindingly furious. But hurt too. Like my heart is being ripped apart. Half the time I don't even know why I feel that way. It's like…like somebody else is controlling me."

Zuko pauses. "That's strange."

"I know," Aang whispers. "I know. And I wish I didn't."

* * *

Sokka is man enough to know that sometimes, he's a blind moron. An overprotective blind moron, at that. And Sokka is man enough to admit that when it comes to Katara, the tendency to be an overprotective blind moron reaches the absolute highest attainable peak of overprotective blind idiocy.

So when he sees Katara―his baby sister with too big eyes and too big smiles and too big heart but her too big eyes are holding back tears and her too big smiles are strained with the lies and her too big heart appears to be shattered beyond what should be humanly possible―Sokka finds himself going just a tad insane.

Which explain why he finds himself unable to sleep, body tense beyond belief as his brain races through possibilities of _why_ and _how_ and _when_ and _who_ and _what_. It feels like it's eating him alive, ever so slowly devouring his soul because for what feels like the first time in a long time, Sokka cannot protect his sister from whatever is hurting her.

(He could not protect her from their mother's death, he could not protect her from their father's departure, he could not even protect her from Zuko's betrayal in Ba Sing Se. Those failures still haunt him, even now that she has made her peace with Kya's death and Hakoda's leaving and Zuko's abandonment.)

He tosses onto his side for what is probably the hundredth time that night and finds Suki staring at him assessingly. It is never a good look for his wife to have on, because it's a look that means her Leader of Kyoshi persona is on.

"Sorry," he says, even though he isn't really.

"Go talk to Toph," she says simply, then rolls over and apparently goes back to sleep.

Sokka blinks once, twice, thrice. Then he shrugs a little and, with his wife's blessing, clambers out of bed and down the hall toward Toph's room. He reaches it easily enough for all the darkness and his being vaguely groggy despite his brain's insistence on remaining alert.

Toph is awake as he slides the paper and wooden door open. A couple of oil lamps are actually still burning, almost as if she were expecting company. The sardonic look she gives him says she probably was. "Wonder'd how long it would take you," she says by way of greeting. "Could hear you tossing around like a rabid badger monkey all the way down here."

He mumbles and mutters, but doesn't actually reply because he's pretty sure she's speaking the truth.

She waits patiently for all of about a minute before snapping, "Well get in here. I'm not the damned Oracle of the Vapors, I want heat and warmth not some sort of hurricane. And get over here and be useful. Brush my hair."

Sokka rolls his eyes but does as she commands. In a way, she reminds him of Katara back when they were kids. (Were they ever kids?) But the comb she hands him is polished silver inlaid with ivory instead of whalebone. Once he sets to brushing her hair, she settles marginally.

(But only marginally, because Toph is still Toph not matter how many years old or young she is.)

So Sokka begins. Slowly. He doesn't want to rush, doesn't want to say the wrong thing. Doesn't want her to think he's being careless, because he isn't. (Mostly.) "I'm worried about Katara," he starts with. It is neutral enough, and extremely true. Safe starting grounds, he thinks.

Toph shrugs delicately, so as not to upset the combing of her hair, but she snorts loudly enough to make up for the delicacy of her movements. "Everybody knows that. You've been acting like a mother hen pig. It's ridiculous. Funny, but ridiculous."

"So you don't think that my worries are…" he searches for the right word, because he _has_ to chose the right words here, "…justified?"

She doesn't shrug this time, or snort. Instead she lets out a very, very long sigh. "Sokka, I'd be lying if I said something wasn't off about how Katara's been acting. She _has_ been acting odd. But to be honest, I think you're overreacting. Sugar Queen is probably just dealing with some of her left over anxiety about being in the Earth Kingdom again."

Sokka shakes his head, even though he knows that Toph can't see it. "I thought…maybe. But Toph, I don't think that's really it. Zuko wrote me several times, asking if I thought Katara was alright. He seems to think something is wrong, really wrong."

"Of course he does, Sokka," Toph says in a tone that brooks no argument, "He _adores_ Katara. Practically worships the ground she walks on. Any sign that she is not perfectly, absolutely elated with everything is met with worry and attempted solutions by Zuko."

"What?" Sokka tries to wrap his mind around this new information. He'd noticed how much Zuko liked his sister, sure. But…to the level that Toph was implying…

Toph waves her hand dismissively. "Oh, never mind. So, was that your big secret as to why Sugar Queen must be in deep trouble?"

"I talked to Katara. Toph, she _lied _to me. She's terrified of something. When…" he heart clenches in his chest at the memory, "when I touched her, she flinched. Like she thought I was going to hurt her. She's so scared, and so worried, and just…there's something _wrong_, Toph. Something's _wrong_ but she won't tell me. I didn't even notice until Zuko _told _me but now all I can see is…is.._._"

Toph is surprisingly silent. Then, ever so quietly she says, "I'll help you, Sokka. We'll figure out what's going on. It'll be okay."

(But it won't be okay, because Toph did not see the mindless terror that had graced his baby sister's face in the moments Sokka had grabbed her arm. Sokka has failed Katara again and he _knows _it.)

Sokka clenches his eyes shut and feels the tears that had been building up begin to slip down his cheeks.

* * *

By the time Katara stumbles out of the bar, she is both more and less drunk than she would really like to be. More, because she is having a deuced hard time walking in a mostly straight, mostly upright manner. Less, because the numbing of her brain has lessened to the point where she actually feels like thinking. And all her brain will supply to think about is Jun's words.

"_He's in love with you. Stupid boy." _Katara trips over a more-uneven-than-usual cobblestone and grabs at a semi-permanent vendor's stall for support. She stays there, clutching at her newfound support and wondering over those words.

She had always assumed that Zuko loved her, of course. But she hadn't really thought about it. It had just been them, and them coexisting, and them fitting. It hadn't needed words. They had just been this great big unspoken _thing_, if she is being completely honest. A right thing, a good thing, certainly. But a thing nonetheless. That bothers her, actually. Now that she thinks about it.

But perhaps what really bothers her is not that there hadn't been (and still weren't) any spoken declarations of love between her and Zuko so much as the fact that Jun―bitchy, elegant, sexy bounty hunter Jun―had taken one look at them and been able to define the _thing_ while the people actually participating in the _thing_ had still been floundering for answers. Which, of course, led to that damned comment about situational clarity and being emotionally distanced and…

Katara shakes her head determinedly and sways to her feet, letting go of her vendor stall support in an attempt to maintain her upright position on her own power. Just stop thinking about it, she orders herself. And start focusing on _walking_, she adds.

It does something of a trick, because now she can walk. And she's mostly straight, and mostly upright, and no more cobblestones or flagstones or other random road bits manage to trip her up again. The thing is, her conscious might have fixated on walking but her subconscious continued to fixate on Zuko, so now instead of looking at the house she's been sharing with Aang, Sokka, Suki, and Toph, she's looking at the Fire Nation embassy.

She blinks a couple of times, rather drunkenly, then shrugs. It couldn't hurt, after all.

The stairs are difficult to master in her state, but master them she does. After that it is all downhill in the most pleasant sense. Knocking on the door isn't particularly difficult, and the obliging servant who answers guides her to Zuko's suites without so much as a peep before leaving her at the doors with a low bow. She knocks on Zuko's doors, and waits for a few moments before Zuko opens the door and blinks out at her blearily.

"Hi," she chirps like it's noon instead of just past midnight.

"'tara?" he mutters questioningly.

She nods a couple of times.

He blinks, then shrugs and opens the door wider.

So they sleep on Zuko's bed which is much too large for one person anyway, and Katara is so incredibly happy that it almost feels like she'll grow wings as she curls up in his arms.

* * *

Zuko's smart enough that even in the haze of sex he can recognize and remember things like scars. He kisses his way down her body and it's as much to catalogue all those pale little mars as it is to worship her body. Katara doesn't know that though.

So he's not surprised when she stiffens in his arms as he asks quietly, "When did you get these?"

"I…I don't know what you're talking about," she says feebly.

He wraps his arms around her tighter, pulls her in closer, and says, "You have well over twenty scars, Katara. With your healing, it takes massive injury to leave scars. When did you get them?"

"I…" she whispers. "I…it was nothing…a misunderstanding…"

The puzzle pieces click into place. Zuko abruptly rolls on top of Katara, body acting on his heart's instinct to cover her, guard her, _protect _her somehow.

"Aang," he says, and it is not a question.

She flinches and looks away. But she does not deny it.

A growl rumbles in his throat. Unmitigated hatred claws at Zuko, demanding that he give in to it. The fire that has burned within Zuko his whole life blazes into an absolute inferno. "I will _kill him."_


	10. Part Eight

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Avatar the Last Airbender.

**Notes: **The chapter in which there is Angry!Zuko, Angry!Aang, Angry!Katara, Angry!Characters In General, Attempted Girl Talk, Aang Ass Kicking Part the First, Meaningful Dreams, MOAR Jun, and Katara Grows a Fucking Spine. Oh yeah.

My goal is to have this finished by this summer. End of May, preferably. It will be done before the end of August, however, because at that point I embark on the wonder known as college, at which point my writing time will become a thing of distant memory most likely.

I also want to take a moment to thank everyone for trying to stick with me. I know, I know, it's been forever. Pelt me with carrots if you like.

EDIT: This is slightly edited for clarity. If it is still not clear—Katara returned to Aang in order to make her own break from him, as opposed to simply being rescued by Zuko. Was she raped at the end? That's for you to decide, it's fairly open ended. Edit is dedicated to _xyzisme_, who points out my plot holes. :D

* * *

**Part Eight**

_Just Breathe Me_

_

* * *

_

"It's not as bad as you think," Katara says quickly, laying her hands on his shoulders in what she hopes is a placating manner. She almost recoils back at the sheer heat emanating from his skin, as if he is quite literally about to burst into flames. He notices her sudden hesitance, and maybe misinterprets it, or maybe not, but he says softly, softly, softly:

"Don't worry, 'tara. You're safe. So safe." His throat moves once, twice, swallowing down more words. Probably, she thinks distantly and maybe a little hysterically, more threats about just what he is going to do to Aang. His eyes clench shut briefly, muscles moving under his skin in a way that leaves no doubt about just how angry he is and just how much he wants to kill something right now.

But strangely…Katara does feel safe. Because Zuko never lies. Never ever ever, and she knows, with the certainty that she used to believe in fairytales, that Zuko will never ever ever hurt her not even if it costs him the world and his life. And he will protect her, protect her with the ferocity of a dragon protecting its damsel. And… "Zuko," she whispers. And he will let the damsel save herself, too, she thinks. "Zuko, you can't kill Aang."

Zuko freezes above her, whole body tensing. "What?" he hisses oh so slowly. He is so dangerous right now, barely leashed ferality, and she knows it. Dragons are not tame creatures, after all. They never are. She has done the impossible and made the dragon hers, but that does not mean he's tame, and she's not stupid enough to think that Zuko will not rip Aang limb from bloody limb.

"You can't kill him," she says softly. "He's the Avatar. It's dangerous."

A low, rumbling growl leaves his chest. "Agni Kai. I will destroy him." His eyes open, all golden sincerity and fierce fierce fierce absolute unconditional adoration. "I'm not letting you go back to that, 'tara." She lets that sink into her mind.

An Agni Kai. Zuko still cannot summon lightening, but she has no doubt that even with Aang's bending it would be a very close battle. And if Zuko won…when Zuko won…he would take her away, whisk her to a palace where he would adore her, would cherish her. They would spend their days arguing and laughing and fighting and playing and being almost painfully in love. They would be happy.

But…

"You can't kill Aang, Zuko." Her mind works frantically, shifting through the new scenarios racing in on her. "If you kill him, you'll be seen as the evil Fire Lord trying to take over the world again. The world will fall into chaos. War. So much war."

"I don't care," he growls. His body pushes against hers as her wraps himself over her. So warm, hot, scorchingly hot, she's drowning, can't think anymore. "I don't care," he says again, pressing long, slow kisses against her neck, lips moving sensually as he growls out those words. So hot, burning burning burning.

And he will literally give up the world for her.

* * *

It is nearly noon when he finally lets her leave. His hand stays on her waist protectively and she knows possessively, and she briefly wonders what she is getting herself into. She is in love with Zuko, in a different way if not more than she had loved little Aang. But he loves her enough to let terrible things happen, and if he loves her that much then she knows, that easily, oh so easily, she could be trading one cage for another. A better cage, perhaps, one made of gold and furnished with adoration instead of bruises, but still a cage.

"Zuko…" she says, pausing. The laces of her boots are held in her fingers, tangled around slim brown digits like so many tiny chains. "Zuko, promise me that you won't kill him. Not yet." She adds that last bit as some placation, but more as her own sort of safety net. If this does not go how she plans, this whole thing could come crashing down around her ears, and she wants, needs, to know that Zuko will be waiting there to shield her and fight away everything that would harm her.

She's being selfish, she knows.

He takes a deep breath, and when he finally lets it out is shaky. His hand tightens a bit on her waist, not enough to hurt but enough to reassure himself that she is there and for the time being safe. "Alright," he says quietly.

"Promise," she persists. "I need to deal with this on my own." The laces fall from her hands as she leans back, upright, to stare him dead in the eyes. He needs to know just how serious she is about this, just how much she needs to confront her demons.

To her surprise, he meets her gaze evenly. His expression is raw and so, so sincere as he says, "I promise, 'tara. I'll let you deal with this your way." He swallows, and his grip tightens again briefly, and he looks at her with eyes that are still raw, sincere, but also dangerous. "But if he hurts you again, I swear to Agni above that I will kill him without a second thought."

And both of his promises are true, she knows. So Katara smiles softly but tinged with fire, the kind of smile she has only ever given Zuko, and leans over the scant inches to press her lips to his. She will not call it a desperate kiss, but it is close.

* * *

Her walk back to the house is long. Her body is sore. Her mind still aches slightly with a hangover. Her heart pounds with what she knows must happen soon. But her soul dances a bit, because she's seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

One conversation, one confrontation, and this is all over.

It's going to be hard, she knows. Knows deep inside, as she climbs the stairs into the house she shares with her not-really-husband. But she'll survive. She has to.

(Zuko will burn the world if she doesn't.)

* * *

The faint smell of smoke and flame emanating from within the Fire Nation Embassy almost makes Jun smile. She was right. She's almost always right, but as she ascends the stairs she thinks that it's rather nice to have it proven once again.

Admission into the embassy is surprisingly easy to gain, all things considered. Her eyebrows raise involuntarily, wondering just how lax security must be if they'd let a rough and tumble Earth Kingdom wench in just to see the Fire Lord. But perhaps, she thinks as she pauses under the eaves of the roofed veranda that lines the inner courtyard, that might have something to do with the fact that right now, Fire Lord Zuko looks like he could kill something. (Or several somethings.)

A rough and tumble Earth Kingdom wench might not be such a security breach after all.

"Hey, Prince Pouty," she calls, leaning against the nearest pillar casually. She knows right now she looks goddamned sexy, which makes what she's about to do a hair easier. Zuko turns, gold eyes impossibly narrow like he's squinting straight into the sun.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, dropping his fighting stance. She's not stupid enough to think it means he's relaxed. His muscles are deceptively loose, but she knows one false move from her and he could spring into action.

So she shrugs, slow casual easy, like she's just checking up on an old friend. "Oh, wondering if you might have gotten a visit last night," she says airily.

Zuko's muscles tense, even though she hasn't made a move yet. Jun lets her eyes travel over his form assessingly. The waterbender really is a lucky bitch. Jun would've never even bothered with the Avatar if she'd had Prince Pouty running after her adoringly. He'd grown up very, very well.

"I did," Zuko says finally. His voice is rougher than normal, she notes. Always rough, his voice. Unmistakable when he's giving a speech. But now it has that special kind of roughness borne from holding back tears.

"Hm," Jun hums noncommittally.

"Jun…" he begins slowly, as if he's starting to piece together some vital information. "Jun, did you run into Katara last night?" Jun hums again, nodding barely enough to let him see. She doesn't want to interrupt his train of thought just yet. "What do you _know_?" he asks.

Fire, she thinks. So much fire. He's grown up so well.

"I'm just a simple girl," Jun says. "But I hear a lot of gossip. Drinks tend to loosen tongues." She looks at him meaningfully. Perhaps he gets her double meaning, perhaps he doesn't. "What I can tell you is that your sweet, precious little princess is in a great deal more danger than she will tell anyone."

She thinks, watching his body heave with slow, purposeful breathes, that he probably already knew that. But she also thinks, distantly, that perhaps there is only one thing that she knows that no one else does. "And once upon a time, the sweet precious little princess ran away from home. She ran to a canyon, a canyon deep in the Earth Kingdom. And in that canyon, the sweet precious little princess met a beast of unimaginable strength." As she talks, she pushes herself away from the pillar, walking toward Zuko, who looks at her with wide eyes. "A warrior watched helpless as the princess fought the beast, until finally, the beast brought her to her knees. And the beast asked why the princess ran, but the princess would not answer. So the beast…" Jun pauses a few feet from Zuko and cocks her head. "The beast made her break. And as she broke…"

Zuko roars, and it is only Jun's quick reflexes that save her from the blast of fire that burns her way at a frightening speed. Jun's heart pounds with unwilling fear. But she can't let it end likes this. She needs to finish this.

"As she broke the princess screamed for her savior."

* * *

Zuko watches Jun leave with dead eyes. His heart clenches in on itself, like it is trying to implode his entire being if it will only be given enough to time to do it. So he curls tighter into himself, breathes harder, tries to remind himself that he's alive, she's alive, and this time he's going to save her.

…_screamed for her savior…_

Jun's leather clad hips sway from side to side, sensual, easy. She looks over her shoulder, something that should be coy but isn't. Like she's checking over her work, making sure that he is as broken as she expected. Or as angry, he thinks, because she had looked at his rage with approving eyes.

"Bye, Prince Pouty," she says easily, pausing and still looking at him. Even from here, he can see how dark her eyes are. Piercing eyes, really, the sort of strong deep color that lends ferocity to her gaze. Then she's turning away, and all he can see is the sway of her midnight dark hair.

* * *

"Katara," Toph sing songs, tapping on the other woman's door. She waits, listening as Katara moves from the bed toward the door. The sheets rustle along the floor, and Toph briefly wonders why exactly Katara is bringing her bed drapery with her.

The screen door slides open. "Yes?" Katara asks. "What is it, Toph?"

"Toph would like to ask you a few questions," Toph says, putting on one of her patented "I'm being a snarky smug bitch, go with it" smiles. Katara sighs and opens the door a little more, backing away to allow Toph to walk into the room.

Toph walks in, shoving some of her way-too-thick hair behind one way-too-delicate ear. "So, Sugar Queen, what's been up with you lately?"

Katara freezes. Literally freezes. She could be no stiller if she were iced over by one of the other master waterbenders. Toph pauses and listens. Though Katara's breathing is nonexistent, her heart pounds hard enough that Toph can practically swim in the vibrations.

"I've got no idea what you're talking about, Toph," Katara says slowly.

"Sure, sure, Sugar Queen," Toph says carelessly. "Even Sokka's noticed something's up. That means something must be up." She turns, facing Katara. She's slightly relieved that Katara has started breathing again, even if the breathes are overly slow and controlled.

"Is it because of Aang?" Toph says after a few beats of silence.

Katara's heartbeat speeds up as she shakes her head. "N-no, of course not."

"Could it be that he's angry because you and Sparky are in love?"

Faster, faster. "Toph, what are you t-talking about?"

"Has Aang been…harming you?"

No words, but Katara's heartbeat is impossibly, impossibly fast as she stumbles backward and shakes her head.

* * *

Sokka doesn't want to believe what Toph relays to him. He doesn't, because that means so many things. All the wrongs that he's let slip by. All the years that his baby sister may have been in pain. So much that has gone wrong wrong wrong _wrong_.

But more than that, he's angry.

* * *

Toph lets Sokka confront Aang on his own.

* * *

Sokka does not go heavily armed, but the boomerang on his back and his space sword at his hip are reassurances. He isn't sure what he's tracking Aang down for, if he merely wants to scream or if he wants blood to be spilt. Confrontation, however, is inevitable.

It is the low rumbles that tell Sokka his first guess of Aang's location was correct. Rock moving, shifting. Aang is practicing his earthbending one of the smaller training stadiums of Ba Sing Se, a place that is well appointed but not so busy as to disrupt the Avatar's practice. A good place for a confrontation, not so public that Sokka cannot scream to his heart's content.

The workers give him not a second glace as he walks through the main gates and through the changing rooms. It is empty as can be, to better facilitate the Avatar, but they don't bother stopping him. His face is as well recognized as any others from the main gang.

Aang is in the largest courtyard, practicing creating small paths that almost resemble a Zen garden. The paths are something that Toph uses and abuses for finesse control of her earthbending, something that Aang clearly picked up as her student at some point.

Strange to think about now.

Sokka steps into the courtyard, forcing himself to move calmly. "Aang?" he says, and he's dreadfully proud of how very even and calm his voice is.

Aang turns, a bright smile on his suddenly far too young face. "Sokka," he says back, the cheer on his face translating easily into his voice. It seems impossible, looking at him now, to connect him to the frightened creature that is Sokka's sister.

And yet…Sokka remembers when the Avatar state took over. Remembers when the sandbenders stole Appa. Remembers when Aang woke up after the fall of Ba Sing Se. Remembers when Katara stammered out that Aang had kissed her oh so unexpectedly. Remembers remembers remembers and he knows, has always known, that there is darkness in Aang's soul just as there is darkness in anyone's soul. Darkness that has eaten at his spiritsdamned _baby sister_ and this _will not stand_.

"What have you done to Katara?"

Aang freezes, smile slipping off his face at the ice that coats Sokka's voice.

"What have you done to my baby sister?"

With wide eyes, Aang shakes his head slowly. His hands come up placatingly. "Sokka, whatever you think…I haven't done anything," Aang protests weakly, backing away. "She's making it up, I swear."

Fury taking over, Sokka grabs his sword, unsheathing it in one easy movement. He points it at Aang, and even if it feels like he's about to fall apart his hand does not tremble. "What have you _done_?"

* * *

Blood. Pouring out of a cut to Aang's side where he didn't dodge quite in time from Sokka's vicious swings. Aang has never seen Sokka fight like this before, this anger and fury blinding him but at the same time honing him until everything is so precise.

Aang whimpers and pushes a hand over the gaping wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. It is not long but deep, and had he jumped two seconds later it probably would've hit an internal organ.

Sokka pauses, looking at him with that same strange ferocity, like a predator trying to gage the threat of another predator. It is a look that Sokka has never directed at Aang before and maybe that, that is what breaks him. Or maybe it's the slow, deliberate words that come out of Sokka's mouth next. "You don't deserve her. She is no longer your wife. And if you hurt her again, I will _murder_ you."

They are not words that Sokka can keep, most likely. But they are words that Aang knows Sokka will try to keep, will die trying to keep. That's what scares him.

"I'm sorry," Aang whispers, eyes tearing up. "I'm so sorry. I don't know…I didn't know…I just can't…" But he can't finish, and Sokka just narrows his eyes.

"I'll send a healer on my way out," Sokka says, all ice again. "And later, we're going to talk."

* * *

Aang comes home with a new cut on his side. They are both immeasurably quiet as they eat dinner, Katara not bothering to mention Toph's strange visit. It all ends rather abruptly as Katara is cleaning up after dinner.

She looks over her shoulder at him, and finally says quietly, "What happened?" There is no need to ask what she is referring to.

Aang glances down at his own side. "Your brother." His voice is icy, icy calm. "He had some things to talk about."

"Oh," Katara says, her hands pausing in their work. She looks down, away. "I have…some things to talk about too, Aang." The silence that follows her statement is not encouraging but he hasn't said no yet. "I want to leave."

"You whore," Aang says, and it scares her more than any screamed threats could. His grey eyes are impossibly cold, glacial in a way that reminds her of her homeland. Nostalgia builds in her as she stares into his eyes, not really for her home (because it hasn't been her home is so long, for years and years really) but for what she remembers those eyes used to be.

She shakes her head slowly, sighing as her mind goes distant. Happier times when he was happier and she was happier and everyone was just happier.

A slap on her face brings her back to reality. She flinches, biting her lower lip painfully. Hard enough that she is sure that any moment it's going to start bleeding. She would not mind if it did. A little blood. Just a little to prove she's still alive.

He grabs her chin, gripping it with one strong hand. She lets him wrench her head about until he feels she's looking up at him with proper subservience. "Yes?" she says, finally, when he says nothing and simply stares down at her as if expecting something from her.

Once Upon a Time, she'd never seen him snarl. She'd never even seen him scowl. All that started changing the summer he defeated the Fire Lord.

"You are a whore," he says again, making sure to enunciate each syllable. "Did you think I wouldn't know?"

"Know what?" she asks dully, playing along.

"Know about you and your precious _Zuko_. The one you want to _leave_ for."

"You already knew," she says again. Her shoulders slump a little. "We've had this argument."

"But that was before you decided it would be a good idea to run away with him. Convinced everyone that he deserved you. Made people think that I was hurting you," Aang hisses. She almost misses the screaming that it used to be. This is more unsettling. But she still catches his words, and her eyebrows draw together in confusion.

"What…?" she starts.

* * *

He had never raped her before.

* * *

In the end, it is almost shocking how easy it is. How quickly all her nightmares crumble before her. Her heartbeat syncs into his and she snarls, so triumphant. His eyes widen in utter shock and her snarl turns darker and so much more deadly. A slight movement of her wrist: he slams against the wall, bones creaking dangerously. She stands, legs trembling and blood streaming down her legs, and her arms are shaking as she pins him against the wall with his own blood. She feels like damnation, and he looks at her like she is the Goddess of Death, and maybe she is.


End file.
